On Sunday, December 7th, 1941, we sat listening to the radio when we heard the announcement that the Japanese had bombed the U.S. base at Pearl Harbor. Changes in our family life came rapidly. Within a year, my father had enlisted in the Navy and was sent to flight instructor school. A year later he was assigned to an aircraft carrier, the USS Randolph. When Dad’s ship left for the Pacific, my mother, sister and I returned to Fort Smith from Memphis, Tennessee where we had been living. Fort Smith was home to Camp Chaffee, an army training center, and was soon full of soldiers, many with their families looking for lodging. As all the rental property had filled up quickly; local families were renting rooms to the servicemen as a contribution to the war effort, as well as to help with expenses.

Carole, Ray & Linda Cotton, Memphis, TN 1944
Photo courtesy of Carole Barger

We quickly became involved in all the patriotic activities at Peabody School, joining in the War Bond Drive, the scrap metal and newspaper collections. Ladies’ volunteer groups met once a week to cut and roll bandages for the Red Cross. My grandmother, a prolific needlewoman, was always busy knitting khaki gloves, stocking caps, sweaters, socks, and afghans for the soldiers. “Knittin’ for Britain,” we said. I remember the gloves were knitted with one finger open, the trigger finger.



Everyone joined in and helped. We were proud of our soldiers and our country and wanted to do whatever we could to help the troops fighting overseas. Those who had a family member fighting would have a small service banner with a blue star in the center hanging in the window. Some had more than one flag on display.



We each received ration stamp books with stamps entitling us to a limited amount of sugar, butter, meat, shoes, gasoline and tires. The ration books were titled: The Government’s Guarantee of Your Fair Share of Goods Made Scarce by War. On the back of each ration book, was the notice, “When you have used your ration, salvage the Tin Cans and Waste Fats. They are needed to make munitions for our fighting men. Cooperate with your local Salvage Committee. If You Don’t Need It Don’t Buy It. Never buy rationed goods without ration stamps. Never pay more than the legal price”. Of course, this referred to the “black market,” where rationed goods, often illegally obtained, were offered for sale at high prices.

Gasoline rationing was intended not only to save gasoline but also to conserve rubber tires. Each car owner received a sticker to display on the car windshield with a letter designating ration status. Letter “A” was allowed four gallons a week. Letter “B” got eight gallons, while “C” was allowed an unlimited quantity of gasoline. This category would include use essential to the war effort. The “T” sticker was for heavy vehicles use, as well as for trucks and farm use. The national speed limit was lowered to 35 mph, to save both gasoline and tires.

We all suffered from a shortage of sugar and chocolate, and every woman missed her nylon stockings. There was no silk or nylon for civilian use, thus no fancy lingerie for the ladies. Silk and nylon parachutes were much more important for our fighting boys. Many women used a product that was a liquid coloring, a leg makeup which was painted on the leg to give the appearance of stockings. Care had to be used to avoid streaking. Some even drew a dark line up the back of the leg to look like the stocking seam. Shoe leather was in short supply; leather was needed for shoes and boots for the fighting men. We would only have one pair of shoes at a time; sometimes it was hard to replace this one pair. But all of us kids enjoyed being barefoot most of the time in warm weather.



Instead of butter, we received a white margarine in a big pound block, with a small package of yellow food coloring to mix into it. I was allowed the pleasure of squishing and kneading the food coloring into the margarine, then forming it back into a loaf to be put in the ice box. Each family was encouraged to have a Victory garden, a little plot where they could grow vegetables. We had greens, beans, turnips, squash, and potatoes fresh from the garden. Meat was hard to get, and sometimes we had a fried chicken, but rarely any beef. Pregnant women and nursing mothers were allowed a larger meat ration than the ordinary citizen.



With the necessity of having khaki uniforms and tents as well as camouflage for automobiles and other motorized equipment the dye used for green coloring was not available for civilian use. What had been green was now red, and Lucky Strike cigarettes had to change their packaging, from a green circle on the package to a red circle. Their advertising said, “Lucky Strike green has gone to war.”

We saved tin cans, tin foil, and copper, all sorts of metal, rubber tires, hose, and even shoe soles for the government. There was a right way to prepare your tin cans: both ends were to be cut out, the label removed, and the can almost flattened, but not completely, to allow the flow of chemicals through the can during the recycling process. There was a large fenced-in wire cage in the school yard where we put all our flattened tin cans, tin foil, and other items such as pots and pans. For those ambitious kids, there was an opportunity to make some extra money by collecting scrap metal and taking it to the collection center. You could turn in aluminum for five cents per pound, iron for one cent for three pounds, and rubber for one cent a pound. Most of us concentrated on collecting aluminum, as that was more profitable, but in no time was also much harder to find.



We all saved our pennies to buy war bonds; once a week, at Peabody School, we had War Bond Day, when the teachers issued War Bond stamp books, and sold the ten-or-twenty-five cent stamps. When your book was filled, it was worth $18.75, said to be the cost of outfitting one soldier, sailor or marine for duty. The filled book was turned in for a War Bond, worth $25.00 in ten years, at 3½% interest. Not so bad nowadays.



Patriotic posters everywhere urged us, “Buy War Bonds,” “Plant A Victory Garden,” “Uncle Sam Needs You,” And we always remembered, “Loose lips sink ships.” We were avid fans of war movies, our favorite source of information on what war was all about; as there was no TV in those days. We saw newsreels at the movies every week, showing the American troops in action adding to our interest and involvement in the war. And, how we loved to hear President Roosevelt giving his weekly fireside chats. How safe we felt when we heard this powerful man assuring us that we were winning the war, and, soon, everything would be fine.