Issue 42.12
President Roosevelt in 1939 to 1941 was way ahead of the general public in regard to the role America needed to play in the fight that the democracies needed to win or they would also become subject to dictators. December 7th 1941 changed all that. Japan would never have bombed Pearl Harbor if they didn’t think they would prevail. Americans were then nearly 100% out to win the war. Recruiting offices were deluged. The Williams family of Hibbing, Minnesota sent six boys to the army and then the seventy year old Sam Williams, father of the boys, tried to enlist. After the boys fought their way through Germany, all in different outfits, four of the brothers met in Paris before troop ships took them to America.
There were many other families with such patriotic stories to tell. America’s industry was mobilized in short order. America no longer made autos except a few for the military. No more washing machines, silk-stockings or any other consumer things. Women painted their legs to look like silk-stockings even with a painted dark line on the back of the leg to look like a seam.
Price controls and rationing was the order of the day. War bond sales were everywhere. Even the schools sold stamps to put in books and at $18.75 were traded for a war bond. All buses and passenger trains were always filled with people sitting in the isles. If the crowd of people waiting to board the train was too great, the conductor would say “Servicemen and their wives board first”. Once while waiting to board a crowded train, a young lady with two small children asked me if she could board as my wife. I consented but as I was younger looking than my nineteen years, the conductor looked at me twice. Hitchhiking was easy and it was easier when wearing a uniform. I once hitch hiked 2,000 miles and beat the train.
When food rationing started, households were asked to declare how much they had, and over the maximum allowed, the amount of ration stamps was removed. Households saved many things including bacon grease and metal cans. Most residences had a flag hanging in the window with a blue star for each person in the service and a gold star for one killed.
School children made model airplanes for the Air Corps for airplane recognition practice. America’s war production was more than all of the other belligerent nations both allied and enemy put together. Airplane and tank factories, shipyards, mines and all kinds of factories sprang up like mushrooms after a rain.
My father in law had “hot wheat” stored from the depression years when farmers were restricted by how much wheat they could produce but now the government was happy for him to sell that wheat. Every person in America was now expected to work or fight. There was at least one labor strike but it was squashed shortly.
The copper mines of Butte, Montana had a special problem. Industry needed more copper than was being produced. Many miners went to work at the airplane factories which had not the danger of working in the deep copper mines. The government sent a company of three hundred black soldiers to work in the mines.
The Butte miners all went on strike to get the black soldier miners out. The government backed down and pulled all the soldiers out and sent them to other places. With all that money floating around and few things to buy, you would think that inflation would be a big problem but inflation was not a problem. You could still buy a hamburger for a nickel or a dime.
Sam Wyrouck can be located at 801-707-2666.