Rationing, lack of petrol, one egg a week...

[Lancer44]

I would like to start talking about not really well known, if not forgotten, facts from the ordinary life of civilians in any countries participating in war on both sides.

To start:

In Australia blond, tall, slim girl is sometimes called "dipstick". I could not figure connection, until one elderly fellow told me that during WWII in Australia was terrible shortage of petrol, (gas). There was petrol which was coloured red, which was used only in vehicles neccessary for war production, transport of US, NZ and Australian troops, tractors on the farms and delivery tracks for normal functioning of the country.

There was also yellow petrol for private vehicles rationed in some ridiculous quantity - I don't remember what he said - but perhaps 5 or 8 litres a month.
I'll try to find and post.

To enforce ban on using red petrol in private cars, police was setting control points to nab, say farmers which to go to pub Friday night filled they car with red petrol which legally could be used only in their tractors and harvesters.
They also wanted to curb black market.

On these control points policeman waiting for the next car to be checked, had long piece of wire with a bit of cotton wool rolled at the end.
He stopped car, told driver to open fuel tank cap and checked the colour of petrol used, with "A LONG BLONDE DIPSTICK"!

It is amazing but in common language "blonde dipstick" survived more than 60 years, long after anyone remembered what it initially was.

Post your findings about civilian life during WWII!

Cheers,

Lancer44

[Jim O]

Even in resource-rich USA there was rationing of basic commodities. Additionally, virtually no new automobiles for personal use were produced, all factories having been converted for war production. Being one of the few resources not directly available here, rubber was in very short supply and new tires could not be obtained. I imagne retreads were popular, if one could get fuel.

My grandmother related that shoe rationing was also a great hardship on families with young children. I don't know the exact figure, but young, growing children often had to wear too small shoes or hand-me-downs with holes in them (material to repair said holes bieing in short supply). She also related that sugar was strictly rationed. Nylon stockings were non-existent.

Coffee was also rationed, and I recall my grandparents complaining about that. My father, who was in the US Army Air Corps from 1942-1946 said coffee was readily available for GI's, but that it was generally awful.

Despite all this, people here in the US made out quite well compared to civilian populations in European and Asian comabatants and POW's, many if not most of whom were on subsistence rations or less by the end of the war.

[Lancer44]

I hope we may revive this thread.
Two great "Memories of the 1940's" from Tom Holloway's archives.

By Helen Seagraves (recorded in 1996):

"My memories of rationing in the US during WWII are from the standpoint of a
child a bit older than William Anderson, Jr. In our family we were conscious
of rationing -- living in Idaho and Montana, where distances are great,
gasoline was important. When my father began teaching in a nearby town, we
were impressed by our B sticker for gasoline, but the ranchers and farmers
who surrounded us had much more impressive allotments. And daddy refused to use gasoline for any but "essential" driving.

However, mostly we felt that we had little to complain about, we were aware
of the severe rationing in England, and life threatening hardships facing
people in other parts of the world. This may have been because my parents
were exceptionally concerned about world affairs -- some of my earliest
memories are of hearing the radio late at night reporting on events in
Manchuria, and my father's serious sounding voice commenting on the news.

Of course, it might also have been partly because we'd survived depression years when the rationing at our house was done by a shortage of money. My mother was accustomed to making everything stretch.

Shoe rationing was the real problem -- four children in our family ran
through a lot of shoe coupons. We put a lot of rubber half-soles on shoes,
and there was a gummy substance we could spread over holes in crepe soled
shoes.

I still have some of the ration books with coupons for canned goods and
meats, and a few of the little tokens which were valued as point tokens. We
always had a cow, and often a pig, and mom's big garden turned into an
abundance of home canned vegetables. She didn't have any idea of canning
fruit in water, so the sugar allotment went mostly to preserving fruits.

Mom made soap from time to time, I think mostly because she enjoyed the
challenge, but also because we had fat rendered from the hogs. I remember
moving into a house owned by a man who had once had a candy business, and discovering a treasure trove of sugar he turned over to mom in exchange for home made soap.

When we were living in the mountains north of Yellowstone, some of the high
school students got dad to buy an elk tag and then took him "hunting" for an
elk they'd stashed in a snowbank.
It was cold enough so we could hang the elk in an outbuilding, our freezer, and had meat for the winter. That skirting of hunting law was common in a region where people hunted for food, not for sport.
We had a lot of grub line riders stopping by the house about dinner
time that winter.

My parents would not have trifled with the rationing regulations. They were
strongly patriotic, as well as feeling that they needed to model life as law
abiding and caring citizens for their children.

This is rambling, and perhaps not tightly on the topic or rationing, but hope
it answers some questions for some of you."

By William C, Anderson, Jr.

"I was 7 years old when the war ended. We lived in rural South Carolina. My
father was crippled from a childhood accident and could not serve in the
military. He was an insurance agent and a spotter for the civil air patrol.
I remember tires, sugar, and meat rationing most of all. We were lucky in
that we lived on a farm, had a pig or two to butcher each year, preserving
the meat with salt and smoke the old fashioned way. I remember many a person coming to our home to hopefully buy a piece of meat since it was so hard to come by.

Gasoline was closely rationed, as was sugar and dairy products. Since a
vehicle was necessary to my father's livelihood, he was allotted more gas
coupons than most, but less than others in more critical occupations. Since
sugar was rationed, we used saccharine as much as possible, and a piece of
candy was a rare treat for me as a child.

Looking back, I realize how my mother and grandmother stretched items to the limit, such as mixing bread and onions with hamburger meat, then frying it.
It was done, of course to make the meat feed more people, but they made it
delicious and I still enjoy it prepared that way today; We ate a lot of farm
vegetables and cured meat. Although it is difficult to find properly cured
Country Ham today, I still enjoy it more than steak.

I'm sorry I can't be more specific as to exactly how rationing worked and the
coupons dispensed, but I was too young to participate in the acquiring. I
just remember the shortages and the trading and buying of coupons. What
would probably seem strange to the children of today, was that no one seemed to really mind the hardships, since it was for the war effort and was
necessary as a citizen of the US.
Patriotism then was alive and well.
Through newspaper, radio and newsreel, the people realized that it was all
for a good cause, and anything that helped the war effort was tolerated with
pride."

I think two great accounts - for some youngsters today it may seem unbelievable that in USA could be impossible to buy a new tires or have a large steak or that soap was made at home...
Perhaps it would be wise to preserve some old skills...

Cheers,

Lancer44

Source:
Tom Holloway ----- +44 1926 888333
Home: 1926-420204 Fax: 1926-435534
Internet: t.holloway@warwick.ac.uk
URL:http://www.tcns.co.uk/chatback/

[Jim O]

Somewhere I have my mother's ration coupon book. I'll search through the attic and try to get a pic.

The other thing that was popular here in the US was the "Victory Garden" where even in big cities people grew their own vegetables on small patches of unpaved land.

[Hobilar]

A couple of oddities from the British clothing rationing system.

• Newly appointed High Court Judges were entitled to extra clothing coupons in order to purchase their regalia. Apparently they couldn't go without their Wigs and Gowns for the duration
  
  
• Despite needing more material a Scotsmans Kilt required fewer coupons than an Englishman's pair of trousers.

[Jim O]

Originally Posted by Hobilar

Newly appointed High Court Judges were entitled to extra clothing coupons in order to purchase their regalia. Apparently they couldn't go without their Wigs and Gowns for the duration

What about newly newly admitted barristers? Didn't they need wigs et al also?

[temujin77]

Originally Posted by Jim O

Somewhere I have my mother's ration coupon book. I'll search through the attic and try to get a pic.

I immigrated to the US when I was younger, so I can't say I have any of these coupon books in my family. But my colleague Bryan Hiatt does, and he shared it with WW2DB viewer back in May:

World War II Database: Your WW2 History Reference Destination

The coupon book was dated May 1945.