Restrictions for England and the USA in WW2?

[Harry]

Was there in WW2 for the British and American population / economic restrictions on food, goods, materials, etc., and how has this been handled.

 

Maybe some good literature about this theme?

 

Harry

[Assessor]

In the UK, rationing went on post-war well into the 1950's.

 

Try this for a kick-off:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationing_in_the_United_Kingdom

[swerve]

My mother has no memory of the war (born 1942), but she remembers rationing. She still had her ration card in the 1970s, as a memento.

 

The UK imported most of its food pre-war, as well as a hell of a lot of industrial raw materials (e.g. almost all our oil) & other agricultural products, e.g. all our cotton. With the Kriegsmarine & Luftwaffe interdicting all our shipping that they could, & imports from the European mainland cut off, we had to cut imports - & that required rationing. We increased domestic food production considerably, but it wasn't enough.

 

As well as reducing imports, rationing was intended to ensure that everyone could get an adequate basic diet, enough clothes, etc. The government wanted healthy workers, & no social unrest.

 

Between increased domestic production & rationing, we cut food imports by 50% - and despite war deaths, life expectancy went up during the war.

 

Some imported non-essentials (e.g. tobacco & chocolate) were on the ration, for morale reasons.

 

The government sponsored 'utility' furniture & clothing designs, which used less raw materials than traditional designs. Actually, I regret that so many were discarded as soon as possible. I like their functional simplicity.

Edited September 5, 2011 by swerve

[Rick]

Was tea a rationed item?

[swerve]

Yes.

[RETAC21]

... With the Kriegsmarine & Luftwaffe interdicting all our shipping that they could, & imports from the European mainland cut off, we had to cut imports - & that required rationing...

 

ts, ts, not so much, what really cut imports was the use of convoys and the attendant ineficiencies in shipping.

 

I have read arguments that convoying in 1939/40 was not needed given the few U boats and aircraft available to interdict sea lines, as no mass attacks could be mounted and the U boats were picking up their victims from ships sailing independently anyway. The other bottleneck was war production, evidently.

[Old Tanker]

Here is a link to U.S. rationing.

 

http://www.ameshisto...s/rationing.htm

 

Most rationing on nonconsumables such as cars , bicycles and rubber started in Jan-Feb '42.

Gasoline was 4 gal. per week or special situations 8 gal a week with a 35MPH speed limit in place.

Food rationing in March '43.

 

Rationing started to shut down in the summer of '45 and was over by Dec.'45.

 

During WWII the average U.S. worker did quite well making relatively big money without being able to spend it.

Plus shortages of cloth caused womens hemlines to rise boosting morale .

[swerve]

ts, ts, not so much, what really cut imports was the use of convoys and the attendant ineficiencies in shipping.

 

I have read arguments that convoying in 1939/40 was not needed given the few U boats and aircraft available to interdict sea lines, as no mass attacks could be mounted and the U boats were picking up their victims from ships sailing independently anyway. The other bottleneck was war production, evidently.

 

If there had been more ships sailing independently, wouldn't there have been more targets for those relatively few U-boats able to sneak past the RN & MN in 1939/40? And what about from summer 1940, when the Luftwaffe & U-boats started operating out of France?

 

For most of the war, we were fighting a ferocious and hard (even with breaking Enigma) battle to keep this country fed & the factories running, so we could stay in the war. We were importing ca 80% of our food in 1938, & halved food imports while improving the nutritional status of the population.

[BillB]

Was tea a rationed item?

Dunno off the top of my head but Swerve says yea. Don't think there was much chance of us running out though, if John Ellis is telling it true:

 

"From 1942 the British [government] undertook to purchase the world's entire crop and distribute the surplus to the fifty-two members of the United Nations. At any one time there were over 30 million tons of tea stored in England, and when it is realised that 1,000 tons will make around 500 million cups of tea it becomes clear that this was one commodity of which there could be no conceivable shortage." Quoted from John Ellis The Sharp End: The Fighting Man in World War II (lLondon: Pimlico, 1993 p. 287)

 

BillB

[RETAC21]

If there had been more ships sailing independently, wouldn't there have been more targets for those relatively few U-boats able to sneak past the RN & MN in 1939/40? And what about from summer 1940, when the Luftwaffe & U-boats started operating out of France?

 

For most of the war, we were fighting a ferocious and hard (even with breaking Enigma) battle to keep this country fed & the factories running, so we could stay in the war. We were importing ca 80% of our food in 1938, & halved food imports while improving the nutritional status of the population.

 

 

Theoretically, yes, but the Germans started the war with just 57 subs, so after a first oomph! the number of boats deployed fell off sharply and new construction only replenished the losses. They also contended with a torpedo crisis and Norway in 1940.

 

In 1941/42 a shipping crisis was forecasted but avoided thanks to American help, while guvmint was building up stocks to an enormous amount which it sought to sustain - although further analysis showed it was not really needed. Foodstuff imports took a hit as other loads took precedence and hometown gardens gained in importance to keep the population fed.

 

After Torch a more realistical view was taken, but then the Med had to be supplied and the U boats were really making inroads in the Atlantic convoys, although an outstandingly high figure of ships got through (IIRC never less than 80%).

[baboon6]

I dont think we got bananas back until well after the war was over (It may even have been the late 40s).

 

Looks like there are some interesting bits on here, including a bit about Snook, a horrendiously awful tasting fish that the British Government bought by the shipload for the simple reason it was cheap.

http://www.open2.net/writingthecentury/rationing.html

 

Snoek's great man! Then again I am a Saffa...

[Delta tank 6]

In the UK, rationing went on post-war well into the 1950's.

 

Try this for a kick-off:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationing_in_the_United_Kingdom

 

Why did rationing go on into the 1950's?

 

Mike

[swerve]

Dunno off the top of my head but Swerve says yea. Don't think there was much chance of us running out though, if John Ellis is telling it true:

 

BillB

 

"From 1942 the British [government] undertook to purchase the world's entire crop and distribute the surplus to the fifty-two members of the United Nations. At any one time there were over 30 million tons of tea stored in England, and when it is realised that 1,000 tons will make around 500 million cups of tea it becomes clear that this was one commodity of which there could be no conceivable shortage." Quoted from John Ellis The Sharp End: The Fighting Man in World War II (lLondon: Pimlico, 1993 p. 287)

 

30 million tons? Methinks he's misplaced some zeroes there. If we had 30 million tons, then why did we have a ration of ca 3kg per year per person? And how would we have accumulated that much? We'd have had to stockpile it for many years. Even now, world production is only about 5 million tons per year, & the majority of that is consumed in the producing countries. We must have been planning for that war since Victoria ascended the throne, to accumulate so much. It was enough for the ration to last over 200 years.

 

UK tea imports in 2008 were 157600 tons. The WW2 ration would have needed less per year.

[R011]

Why did rationing go on into the 1950's?

 

Mike

The UK had spent pretty much its entire foreign exchange reserves to fight the war. There were fewer trade opportunities right after the war to build them up because Europe was devastated and a requirement of Lend Lease was that Britain tolerate more US trade with the Empire. The UK also had to pay off the loan the US gave to them in 1945. It wasn't that the payments were especially large, amortized as it was over fifty odd years, but due to a serious misjudgment, the UK had to pay it back in US dollars.

 

This meant that imported stuff was scarce and as much domestic production as possible had to exported to earn foreign exchange.

[baboon6]

The UK had spent pretty much its entire foreign exchange reserves to fight the war. There were fewer trade opportunities right after the war to build them up because Europe was devastated and a requirement of Lend Lease was that Britain tolerate more US trade with the Empire. The UK also had to pay off the loan the US gave to them in 1945. It wasn't that the payments were especially large, amortized as it was over fifty odd years, but due to a serious misjudgment, the UK had to pay it back in US dollars.

 

This meant that imported stuff was scarce and as much domestic production as possible had to exported to earn foreign exchange.

 

Canada also loaned a significant amount of money to the UK:

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6215847.stm

 

Both the US and Canadian loans were finally paid off in 2006.

[R011]

Canada also loaned a significant amount of money to the UK:

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6215847.stm

 

Both the US and Canadian loans were finally paid off in 2006.

Yes. The US and Canadian loans were amortized over fifty years at a 2% interest rate with payments starting four years after the UK got the money and with an option to defer annual payments. This was done six times so the loan was paid-off in 2006 instead of 2000.

 

I wish my mortgage was like that.

Edited September 6, 2011 by R011

[Argus]

The 30,000,000 tons of tea has to be a typo. For scale, Cardiff was moving a tad over 10 million tons of coal a year in its peak period. 30 million pounds I could see, 133,928 tons (@2240lb per ton) seems more reasonable

 

shane

[Archie Pellagio]

Tea was definitely rationed in Australia, you can find a lot of cartoons and jokes about reusing tea-leaves/bags and the like until well after the war.

 

IIRC fuel rationing didn't stop until nearly Korea. (47 or 49?)

[RETAC21]

An example of that is coal, we were exporting significant stocks of South Wales coal to the US, and running the rail network (and presumably power generation) on imported cheap US coal that was little more than powder. Probably a mistake in retrospect, it seems to have been pretty inefficient.

 

As for rationing postwar, there may have been other issues involved. Remember that a lot of warehouses had been knocked down, to mantaining stocks of sugar may not have been as easy as prewar. I also wonder how well off for hulls we were. Does anyone know when the British Merchant marine recovered to prewar numbers?

 

Then there was the apalling winter of 1947. That must have put recovery back months.

http://en.wikipedia...._United_Kingdom

 

 

I don't think by the end of the war there was a net loss of shipping. There were plenty of Libertys available.

[Assessor]

Post-war, issues included:

 

supplying occupied areas (probably over-played c/w other things, but had some effect);

loss of production infrastructure from bombing;

factories geared up to produce things that were no longer of such critical importance and slow to convert;

paying to maintain and demobilise large armed forces;

retaining armed forces to keep control over now (very) reluctant colonies;

merchant lines scrapping ships that had been useful in wartime but which were now hopelessly uneconomic to run, but not replacing capacity;

industrial unrest, especially around dock work;

centrally planned economy (useful in wartime, not so hot in peacetime);

and the whole country being essentially potless.

[Assessor]

An example of that is coal, we were exporting significant stocks of South Wales coal to the US, and running the rail network (and presumably power generation) on imported cheap US coal that was little more than powder. Probably a mistake in retrospect, it seems to have been pretty inefficient.

 

 

Likewise cars. Even for people who had the gelt, they couldn't buy cars - virtually the entire output went for export. You could get an exception is you were a rural doctor or veterinary surgeon.

[swerve]

The 30,000,000 tons of tea has to be a typo. For scale, Cardiff was moving a tad over 10 million tons of coal a year in its peak period. 30 million pounds I could see, 133,928 tons (@2240lb per ton) seems more reasonable

 

shane

A rough estimate of annual consumption, assuming that everyone got the full ration of 2 ounces per week, puts it at fairly close (149000 in 1941) to your 133,928 tons. A stock of 30 million pounds is certainly closer to reality, but even that seems generous.

 

I've seen an estimate of annual consumption in 1938 of 9.11 pounds per head. That works out at about 190000 tons. Allow for the fact that there was coffee on top of that, & the ration was tea or coffee, & you see there was quite a squeeze on consumption.

 

Aha! British historical statistics. Supply of various commodities.

 

1934-8 1943

average

Tea 9.3 7.0

Coffee 0.7 1.0

Fish 25.3 17.2 (1941 = 14.7

Flour 194.5 230.2

Potatoes 181.9 248.8

Sugar 102.9 69.3

Fresh fruit 78.5 28.7

Meat 129.3 98.5

Butter 24.7 7.6

Margarine 8.7 17.0

Edited September 6, 2011 by swerve

[bojan]

Lack of food was a real problem in 1945-49 around here and grandmother remembered fondly when US powdered eggs and C-rats became available in 1948-49. Food shortages stopped around 1950, but food was still rationed until 1954/55. Ironically there was a shitload of motorcycles available and everyone drove those - my grandfather remembered getting one with sidecar in 1946. for a money that could not get him few kilos of meat. Motorcycles also used less gas then cars which helped with gas rationing.

[Steven P Allen]

The pent up demand for cars in the US meant that the industry lacked time to retool: US auto makers produced what were essentially pre-war models into the late '40s.

[RETAC21]

I seem to recall reading somewhere that some car firm (I think it was morris) had put uncompleted body shells up in the roof beams in 1939, and when 1945 came they brought then down and started building again. So even for those who could afford cars, intially the best you could hope for was something from 1939. Even 'New' models, were essentially reworked prewar designs as you can see from the MG TC.(which I must admit Id love anyway!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MG_T-type

 

My Grandfather bought a prewar sportscar when he came back from the POW camp. Then he got nagged so incessently from his sister (who was his guardian) he was forced to sell it. She was worried what the neighbours might think.

 

 

Incidentally going entirely off subject, Im researching Morris exports from Brentford Dock. If anyone happens to have any photographs of the containers they shipped them via rail and transfered to Thames barge it might be quite helpful.

 

The pre-war design of the Volkswagen Bettle didn't hurt it much, while the post-war Messerschmitt KR bubble cars did not do greatly.