"Rationing" Topic

We've discussed soldiers' rations, so here's an informative article explaining in detail how the British conducted food rationing (so the soldiers could get their food).

link

Interesting angles, i.e. only children were allowed to eat oranges, and many kids grew up in Britain who had never seen a banana.

OK, only tangentially related to miniature gaming. But still interesting!

My parents say they preferred powdered eggs to the real thing as that was what they were brought up with. Rationing lasted well into the 1950s, so considerably longer after the war than during the war itself.

We were issued rationing cards again during the Oil Crisis in the early 1970s, but they were never used. I recall Dad stockpiling jerrycans of petrol at the end of the garden. Very safe!

Similar stockpiles of marmalade and black market paint stored at the back of the house in the war were destroyed by a V1:)

Although not nearly as severe as in the UK, the US also had rationing during WW2. After the war was over, the Office of Price Administration made up packets of various ration stamps and booklets to each state's archives or historical society. I processed ours several years ago, with coupons to allow one to buy anything from sugar and coffee to rubber boots to gasoline to refrigerators (ice boxes actually).

Jim

The Taste of War: World War II and the Battle for Food

by Lizzie Collingham is an excellent recent survey and analysis of the food policies of the major war-fighting powers, and the impact of these policies on the course of the war.

Well written, too. I recommend very highly:

link

My mom mentioned rationing here in the USA as well.

Seems they even had to turn in their toothpaste tubes to get more – made of aluminum, back before plastic became popular.

Supposedly, they also asked people to turn in pots and pans, and other metals to aid the war effort.

A lot of food items were strictly limited, or unavailable.

I do recall mention of stamps being issued which had to be turned in for basic staples.

That's a very interesting wrtie up on something that gets mentioned often in the context of the war but not explained in detail…

Even fabric was hard to get, back in the day.

My mom's family was pretty large, and apparently when some of the flags captured were brought home from the war, they were cut up to make clothing.

A terrible shame, but a sign of the times.

Interesting comments, thanks. Good recommendation: I'll look that book up, zfn. **Edited: just ordered from Amazon. It looks that good**

My only personal experience with rationing was for US Forces in Korea, where we had ration cards for coffee, hard liquor, and maybe.. rice? Just to prevent too much black marketing on the Korean civilian economy.

"Rationing lasted well into the 1950s, so considerably longer after the war than during the war itself."

Yes, the article makes the point that bread was not rationed during the war, only afterwards! A really good book on postwar life in the UK which I have really enjoyed is "Austerity Britain".

tuscaloosa, Collingham's Taste is particularly revealing when paired with Snyder's Bloodlands, which surveys Soviet and Nazi mass murders in Poland/Byelorussia/Ukraine, beginning with the holodomor collectivization famine, and relates them directly to food policy.

amazon.co.uk/dp/0099551799

I also recommend highly.

Thank you, I've heard of the book and will check it out.

I have to thank zfn for his recommendation of "Taste of War". I'm most of the way through it, and it is a fascinating read. I thought I knew a lot about WWII (like most gamers here), and I have learned a lot from this book.

The biggest lesson probably being: always keep space for a vegetable garden; you never know!

Thanks for the update tuscaloosa, I'm glad you're enjoying Taste of War. It was an eye-opener for me. I agree, the lesson is to plant some vegetables in your yard and keep a crate or two of jerky and canned soup in your basement.

Rationing nearly killed my mate's dad:

Frank (now long passed) was a Spitfire pilot at RAF Aberporth on the wild west coast of Wales. In 1944 he was engaged to a local farmer's daughter. As you might imagine, farmers were able to provide food for their own table, so were spared the worst rigours of rationing and so Frank was lucky enough to be fattened up by his fiancee's parents on a regular basis. However, his parents had no such luck – living in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, they had absolutely no access to anything remotely resembling fresh food.

Come Christmas 1944, he had a 24 hour grant to go home for leave just before Christmas. He also had permission to take the Spit home with him (probably signed off as a cross-country navigation exercise…). So with his future father-in-law's help, he stuffed Browning ammo cans with a goose, sausages, steaks, bacon, eggs, spuds, Brussells sprouts, you name it, to give his family the best Christmas they'd had since the 30s!

However, the weather was already bad and the met forecast only showed things to be getting worse. The future father-in-law begged Frank to reconsider, as it wasn't worth dying for a goose and plum-duff, but Frank, with all the over-confidence of a Spitfire pilot, loaded the guns with Christmas goodies and took off into 8/8ths cloud cover, driving rain and 200ft cloud-base.

Almost immediately, he realised that his first plan, to fly east through the mid-Wales mountains, was a non-started due to low-level clag. Giving that up, he followed the coast north, skirting around the Welsh coast to keep under the cloud and intending to cut through a gap in the Pennines. Finally passing Liverpool, the cloudbase got lower and lower. He was now at 100 fet and the visibility was really closing in. Looking around frantically for landmarks, all he could see was grey. Then suddenly through the grey murk, he saw a row of houses on his right, arrayed along a sea-front… "Brilliant!" he thought "I'll just follow those for a while. I'll know exactly where I am when I reach…"

Realisation suddenly dawned on him in a split-second…

Flicking the yoke to the left and opening the throttle, he missed Blackpool Tower by mere inches…