Were you alive during WW ll?

Question

If so, would you share some memories. What do you remember of the times.

I remember the male members of the family leaving, the super thin paper their letters home were written on, the rationing books, black out curtains, watching my mother 'paint' her legs and then me drawing a very thin dark line down the back to simulate the seam in the 'nylon/silk' stockings that weren't really there, my grandmother complaining about the coffee that wasn't really coffee. Does anyone know what was used as a substitute?

Answer 1

I used to hear "chickory" as a substitute for coffee, I believe.

I remember women lining up at Woolworth's to have their nylons darned.

And of course I remember all the other rationing. And the beginning of that newfangled thing "oleomargarine", which at first seemed to be just a block of shortening with a little envelope of food coloring to be mixed in. Later, it was in a heavy, clear plastic bag with a bubble of coloring to be popped and kneaded in. The very best Christmas present I ever got in my life was when my grandmother gave me a whole pound of real butter all for myself. Talk about sacrifice!!

I remember once when my Mom mislaid her sugar stamps and found them just the day before they expired and new ones were issued. So she went out and used them all, and for a few days she made jams and pies.

I remember the blackouts. The Army wouldn't take my Dad, so he became an Air Raid Warden.

And, since we lived very near a Naval Air Station in California, I remember the sky being black with planes sometimes (actually, there were probably only a few dozen, but I was little and it looked like a lot to me).

I remember my grandmother's flag in the window with 2 stars on it. I remember buying savings stamps at school one day a week. I remember paper drives and metal drives. I remember collections during the intermission at the Saturday matinee. I remember resoled shoes and victory gardens.

I remember one of my grandfathers, who had not known he was brought to America from Germany when he was four, having the Army come to his house, confiscate his radio, and tell him he must not go out in the evenings. He was heartbroken. He'd actually run for the office of Alderman in Chicago once, and he fought in the Spanish American war in Cuba. And he was very involved in his church, with evening Bible studies.

THAT was America at war. Today, sadly, we have America whose military is at war.

Answer 2

I was 4, I remember 2 things..1 the men knocking on doors yelling "Blackout" and we lived on a hill overlooking Mare Island Shipyard in Vallejo, Ca. there were soldiers stationed @ the top of the hill that monitored the radio{ that is my guess} and watched for incoming planes that might bomb the shipyard, I remember the guns aimed @ the sky.. they had a white duck as a pet..every day I went up the hill to visit with them and the duck..my mom said once a week the soldiers would tell me they wanted some cookies..so my mom very pregnant with twins would make them cookies and the next day off I would go up the hill with a plate full of cookies..now who in their right mind this day and age would let a 4 year old go visit 18 and 19 year old young men all by themselves..how times have changed..and not for the better..

Answer 3

The only thing I dont remember from that time is the coffee. Maybe my family didnt drink it. I was born in 1938 and remember all of the fine young men going off to war. Sirens would go off and everyone had to get inside. We had those dark green shades but werent really supposed to turn on any lights until the all clear signal. I can remember running home to tell my mother that we could take our cigarette butts to the butcher and get $2.00 a pound. Of course they didnt mean cigarettes-but I was trying to help the family save money. I remember the little flags that people hung in their front windows telling everyone how their sons or fathers were. If a gold star suddenly showed up-it meant that person had been killed. I especially remember that day in August when the war was over. Bells were ringing all over town and everyone I knew went to church to thank God. Such memories.

Answer 4

Yes, I was born in 1935.

I remember listening to the short wave radio, every night at my grandmother's.

She had 3 sons in the military, 1 in the Army, 1 in the Navy and 1 in the Marines. They volunteered along with all the younger men in town.

I was always worried, that my uncles, would be killed in the war. They came home alive. The one in the Navy had shell shock and had mental problems, periodically. Many came home in a coffin.

We had War Ration Books, for every member of the family, with stamps, specified for certain things.

There were gas stamps, stamps for sugar, coffee, etc.
We couldn't buy anything made out of nylon or anything made of oil.

Germany, surrendered because they ran out of oil.

My husband still has a book with 2 sugar stamps in it, made out in his name. It's framed and hangs
above my computer.

Our grand kids take it to school for projects and and show and tell.

Women, had to work men's jobs. My best friends, sister worked in the coal mine.

We couldn't by tires for vehicles or bicycles.
I had a weird pink had riding tire on my bike. If anyone hard a flat tire, they had to repair the tire, using inter tube patches, placing what was called a boot inside the tire, where there was damage.

When we received letters from my uncles, part of the words were cut out. All mail was censored.

I remembered the day the war was over. Everyone, went down town to celebrate. They honked horns, police turned on their sirens, the fire dept blew their siren, people were shooting guns into the sky and dancing in the streets. It went on until the next day.

Time were very tough and finaly with the loss of over 60 million lives, our men began to came home.

“ If you can read this thank a teacher and since it’s in English, thank a soldier !! ”

The substitute for coffee may have been Pero.

Answer 5

I was 5 years old when WW II start. Remember hearing President Roosevelt over the radio, declaring war on Japan.
To young to remember anything about coffee. Remember the ration books and black out curtains and we used to flatten out the tin cans and turn them in to the stores.

Answer 6

I've read that in the 1800's, Chicory tea was the substitute
used for coffee which was expensive in comparison.
Some people combined a cup of ground and roasted
Chicory with a cup of ground coffee and added the chicory to
stretch the amount of actual coffee used. Garden beets
were also a substitute used for a coffee substitute and added
to a cup of ground and roasted coffee. Corn meal was added
and a raw egg and it was all boiled. Some said it was a
richer tasting coffee and enjoyed it.

Answer 7

I remember all of what the others answered. The letters from my uncles written on the thin paper which had so many blocks of black ink censorship that parts of the letter did not make sense. My mother would send packages to my uncles. It took months for them to reach them and the photos she sent had faded to blank pieces of paper. The gasoline ration books. The blackout curtains. The Lockheed Aircraft Co. in Long Beach camouflaged to look like just a town.
I remember waiting with my family for several hours in Long Beach for General Eisenhower to pass by. His car drove by so fast that all we saw was a blur. But we could say that we saw him.

Answer 8

When I was 4 [1946] my mom and I sailed on a ship to Italy to join my dad who had been fighting at the front lines in WWII.

Naturally I don't remember much prior us joining him. I know from family tales, that my mom worked at the Empire State Building during the war and most of the time I was in my birth town of Cincinnati, Ohio staying with my grandparents. I do know my mom wore real hose and I have many pics of her during that time...usually wearing stylish suits, hats etc and pencil thin! lol

When we got to Italy, we lived in the Army Camp for awhile in my Dad's tent; then got housing with an Italian family in Pisa, where I attended Catholic school - lost any English I had and spoke only Italian [which BTW by 4 years later I had lost it all after getting back to the States]

A very vivid memory I have of the effects of the war was seeing children with missing limbs and other bodily harm in my school from the bombings. SAD

Answer 9

I remember all of the above plus bags of Bull Durham tobacco, slips of thin paper and a little machine, hand operated, that you could use to "roll your own". My Dad worked at a dairy and couldn't even get butter. He took the trolley to and from work and saved his gas stamps so we could visit relatives out in the country occasionally. My Dad was a little too old for military service and had 4 motherless boys to raise on his own. How well I remember those days.

Answer 10

Not born yet (1947) but I heard lots of stories from my parents and from my father in law who was a POW in the Philippines for 3 1/2 years.

My Dad was an electrical engineer and the way he "served" was to help in a "secret" project for the government. later he learned it was "The Manhattan Project". Even though he was not in the Armed services, he was gone a lot.

My father in law loved the country and people of the Philippines and wanted to go back in the 80's but his health prevented it. He did not participate in the Bataan Death March but he did ride all the way to Japan in the hold of a ship with fellow soldiers getting ill and dying around him. They were in the harbor a short time, never got off the ship and were sent back to the Philippines.