Life in the USA

Discussion in 'USA' started by angie999, May 16, 2004.

  1. halfyank

    halfyank Member

    Just wanted to throw out a few general comments on what has been said so far.

    RE: Gasoline rationing. If you've ever heard the phrase, "is this trip necessary?" that comes from the gasoline rationing days. People were asked to ask themselves that before taking any trip, to see if they would be wasting gas, petrol.

    RE: Submarine attacks off US coasts. That was really pretty major, not just a few isolated attacks. Operation Drumbeat is one name for the German assault on US coasts. I imagine the easy pickings off our coasts, ineffective black out, inexperienced escort crews, surprise, must have been a gold mine for U-Boat skippers.

    RE: Rosie the riveter and the home workers. Now days a lot of people have the idea that everybody worked, and that the soldiers really appreciated the sacrifices made by the home front. I've chatted onliine with a number of them still harbored bitter feelings about people they considered war profiteers, slackers, or even unpatriotic. That might be the case in any war.

    One aspect not touched here is how so many people felt so strongly for the President, FDR. My Dad used to say that my Grandmother never worried about him when he was overseas until the day FDR died. Her feelings were that if FDR could die, anybody could, and my Dad wasn't safe. For many people FDR WAS the war effort. I don't know how he compares to Churchill in regards to how the people felt about him, but I know that many, many people were so confident in him that as long as he was alive, they felt victory was a sure thing.
     
  2. Gestapo

    Gestapo Discharged

    Thank you for your understanding.Yes i will be 88 years old but in great health.And remamber i may be from the German army i may was a fashist but i havent hate Americans or Russians never.They are just war friends who are on the outer side of the front.
     
  3. adamcotton

    adamcotton Senior Member

    (halfyank @ Jun 2 2005, 05:30 PM) [post=34974]Just wanted to throw out a few general comments on what has been said so far.

    RE: Gasoline rationing. If you've ever heard the phrase, "is this trip necessary?" that comes from the gasoline rationing days. People were asked to ask themselves that before taking any trip, to see if they would be wasting gas, petrol.

    RE: Submarine attacks off US coasts. That was really pretty major, not just a few isolated attacks. Operation Drumbeat is one name for the German assault on US coasts. I imagine the easy pickings off our coasts, ineffective black out, inexperienced escort crews, surprise, must have been a gold mine for U-Boat skippers.

    RE: Rosie the riveter and the home workers. Now days a lot of people have the idea that everybody worked, and that the soldiers really appreciated the sacrifices made by the home front. I've chatted onliine with a number of them still harbored bitter feelings about people they considered war profiteers, slackers, or even unpatriotic. That might be the case in any war.

    One aspect not touched here is how so many people felt so strongly for the President, FDR. My Dad used to say that my Grandmother never worried about him when he was overseas until the day FDR died. Her feelings were that if FDR could die, anybody could, and my Dad wasn't safe. For many people FDR WAS the war effort. I don't know how he compares to Churchill in regards to how the people felt about him, but I know that many, many people were so confident in him that as long as he was alive, they felt victory was a sure thing.
    [/b]


    Was anything else rationed in the US, aside from gasoline?
     
  4. spidge

    spidge RAAF RESEARCHER

    (adamcotton @ Nov 23 2005, 09:44 PM) [post=42019](halfyank @ Jun 2 2005, 05:30 PM) [post=34974]Just wanted to throw out a few general comments on what has been said so far.

    RE: Gasoline rationing. If you've ever heard the phrase, "is this trip necessary?" that comes from the gasoline rationing days. People were asked to ask themselves that before taking any trip, to see if they would be wasting gas, petrol.

    RE: Submarine attacks off US coasts. That was really pretty major, not just a few isolated attacks. Operation Drumbeat is one name for the German assault on US coasts. I imagine the easy pickings off our coasts, ineffective black out, inexperienced escort crews, surprise, must have been a gold mine for U-Boat skippers.

    RE: Rosie the riveter and the home workers. Now days a lot of people have the idea that everybody worked, and that the soldiers really appreciated the sacrifices made by the home front. I've chatted onliine with a number of them still harbored bitter feelings about people they considered war profiteers, slackers, or even unpatriotic. That might be the case in any war.

    One aspect not touched here is how so many people felt so strongly for the President, FDR. My Dad used to say that my Grandmother never worried about him when he was overseas until the day FDR died. Her feelings were that if FDR could die, anybody could, and my Dad wasn't safe. For many people FDR WAS the war effort. I don't know how he compares to Churchill in regards to how the people felt about him, but I know that many, many people were so confident in him that as long as he was alive, they felt victory was a sure thing.
    [/b]


    Was anything else rationed in the US, aside from gasoline?
    [/b]
    Car tyres, Shoes, Sugar, Meat, Butter, some types of cloth were in the ration books there.
     
  5. adamcotton

    adamcotton Senior Member

    </div><div class='quotemain'>Car tyres, Shoes, Sugar, Meat, Butter, some types of cloth were in the ration books there[/b]

    Really? I had no idea. Why were shoes rationed? Or meat? I always believed America produced abundant supplies of everything...
     
  6. spidge

    spidge RAAF RESEARCHER

    (adamcotton @ Nov 23 2005, 10:37 PM) [post=42022]</div><div class='quotemain'>Car tyres, Shoes, Sugar, Meat, Butter, some types of cloth were in the ration books there[/b]

    Really? I had no idea. Why were shoes rationed? Or meat? I always believed America produced abundant supplies of everything...
    [/b]

    One of their advertisers was something like....."You have a little less so they can have a little more" or something to that effect.

    Virtually days after Pearl Harbour the shelves across America were emptied of Japanese goods who were huge suppliers to the American market.

    This was in most cases a psycological attempt to make Americans conscious of the need to "economise" locally so production for the supply to troops overseas did not suffer. There was also the manufacture of everything to supply Lend-Lease obligations to the Soviets and the British and Far East etc.
     
  7. adamcotton

    adamcotton Senior Member

    Well, thanks for that spidge. Now you mention it, it makes sense. I have learned something entirely new.
     
  8. Kiwiwriter

    Kiwiwriter Very Senior Member

    Shoes were rationed for their leather, which was needed for boots and other military leather gear, as were tires. The all-mechanized US Army and Air Force ate up a lot of rubber tires.

    The best-known rationing was gasoline....the "A" cards...and rubber and sugar, which led to wartime scandals.

    Another aspect of rationing were the changes in production. In 1942, Ford produced hundreds of thousands of personal cars. In 1945, it produced 12...all for the Army, basically staff cars.

    Another rationing came in baseball...with rubber consigned to the war effort, the "balata ball" was introduced as a wartime ersatz, and it lacked the "giddyup" of pre-war baseballs. They were blamed for lower batting averages. That was unfair, as most of the best hitters were in uniform, and major league baseball was played by 4-Fs and older men...42-year-old Paul Waner impersonated a center fielder for the Yankees, 15-year-old Joe Nuxhall pitched for the Cubs...and one-armed Pete Gray played right field for the defending American League Champion St. Louis Browns. The 1945 All-Star Game was cancelled ostensibly to save on transportation assets, but really because there were no stars worthy of the name.

    Rationing in the US was not as bad as Britain. Americans still got three gallons a month for their cars. Britons had to put their cars up on chocks for the duration.
     
  9. angie999

    angie999 Very Senior Member

    There was also an active womens' baseball league in WWII, which attracted big crowds, but it did not survive peace and was disbanded.
     
  10. Kiwiwriter

    Kiwiwriter Very Senior Member

    (angie999 @ Nov 23 2005, 09:56 AM) [post=42043]There was also an active womens' baseball league in WWII, which attracted big crowds, but it did not survive peace and was disbanded.
    [/b]

    Not so. It did survive V-J Day. The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League lasted until 1954. Since it was based in the area of Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa, where there were no major league teams (and the two Chicago ballclubs both stank on ice), they had a lot of fan support.
     
  11. angie999

    angie999 Very Senior Member

    Well, you live and learn. 1954 eh!

    Why did the Chicago clubs stink? I love baseball and have a soft spot for the Cubs.
     
  12. Kiwiwriter

    Kiwiwriter Very Senior Member

    The Chicago baseball teams have suffered for decades of horrible management.

    The Cubs had the Wrigley chewing gum family as owners, the White Sox had Charlie Comiskey and the Allyn family. Comiskey was cheap, the Allyns just not very good.

    The White Sox collapsed with the 1919 "Black Sox" scandal and did not get into the World Series again until exactly 40 years later, 1959, losing in six to the Los Angeles Dodgers. They remained mediocre after that, until this year's well-assembled team.

    The Cubs also had horrible management, and were probably hurt somewhat by having the only ballpark in the majors with no lights, until 1988. That may have worn out players, with Chicago's summer heat.

    Both teams made a "cult" of mediocrity, and that created a corporate culture that seems to have supportd it over the years. Notice that newer general managers and ownership has been able to break these corporate baseball cultures: Boston, Anaheim, Florida, and San Francisco being among them.
     
  13. jimbotosome

    jimbotosome Discharged

    I have to agree with Kiwi. Strange as it may seem, the city of Chicago, in baseball, revels in mediocrity. They have nicknamed the Cubs the “lovable losers”. It was the same with the White Sox although they kept getting nailed by the always overachieving NY Yankees in years where the White Sox were the favorites. This is where the term “Damn Yankees” came from as a frustration for the fact the Yankees would often beat teams that were better than them just out of tradition and confidence, although I believe the origin of the term as applied to the New York ball club actually came from the Cleveland Indians, or so I have heard.

    As strange as it may sound, there is an X factor in sports and probably in war as well where there is an expectation of success. For instance, if the US did not enter the war, no one would have counted the UK out from winning the war though they would not have been the favorite to win. There is something about confidence and expectation and the confidence it has with it. I am not talking about “false bravado” but rather a genuine tenacity to win even against the odds. You folks in soccer land (sorry, football is already reserved for the American version although the “boys down under” may borrow it occasionally just because of the sufficient level of violence they have in their version of it) probably have your version of a dynasty type team that always seems to win for some strange reason even when playing a team that is better than their own. We call it a “mystique” here in the states.
     
  14. angie999

    angie999 Very Senior Member

    (jimbotosome @ Nov 28 2005, 05:08 PM) [post=42193] football is already reserved for the American version [/b]

    Nah, don't you believe it.

    Anyway, don't you mean rugby for cissies?
     
  15. jimbotosome

    jimbotosome Discharged

    (angie999 @ Nov 28 2005, 12:11 PM) [post=42194]Nah, don't you believe it.

    Anyway, don't you mean rugby for cissies?
    [/b]
    No. I think there is an illusion that Rugby is more violent than American Football because of the pads. Its actually a Paradox because pads do just the opposite. The helmet allows people to collide at full speed and inject maximum force on the hit since a helmet is rigid. That and shoulder pads allows someone to turn their body into a literal battering ram. I have played both. I played organized football in high school, and have both experienced injury (shoulder dislocation) and dolled out quite a bit. I have seen the legs of people snapped at the knee where they completely folded up from the knee tearing all ligaments and tendons, legs broken in half, backbones jammed and broken, major concussions of people wearing helmets, hits so violent that a helmet literally splits in two (which is thick hard plastic), etc. American football is the most dangerous (as far as injuries go) large scale sport I know of, even more so than boxing. Trust me Ang, the wearing of pads is merely to prevent fatalities (which do occasionally happen) and amplify the injury propensity rather than diminish it.
     
  16. angie999

    angie999 Very Senior Member

    I do actually sort of follow American football, but I don't watch much, as it is on TV too late for me. I used to watch recorded highlights some years ago when they showed them earlier in the evening.

    The rugby thing, though, never, never fails!
     
  17. jimbotosome

    jimbotosome Discharged

    (angie999 @ Nov 28 2005, 12:50 PM) [post=42199]I do actually sort of follow American football, but I don't watch much, as it is on TV too late for me. I used to watch recorded highlights some years ago when they showed them earlier in the evening.

    The rugby thing, though, never, never fails!
    [/b]
    Ohhhh, you have an evil streak too Angie! images/smilies/default/ph34r.gif My complements!
     
  18. Gerard

    Gerard Seelow/Prora

    Well I'm a fierce fan of American Football and I'm a Silver and Black fan for my sins. An Irish Member of the Raider Nation!! :D Jimbo, What team do you follow? Oh and By the way Football as played in the UK and Europe came before Gridiron so the term stays with Soccer!! NAHANANANANAH!!!! :D
     
  19. jimbotosome

    jimbotosome Discharged

    (Gotthard Heinrici @ Feb 15 2006, 05:06 AM) [post=45956]Well I'm a fierce fan of American Football and I'm a Silver and Black fan for my sins. An Irish Member of the Raider Nation!! :D Jimbo, What team do you follow? Oh and By the way Football as played in the UK and Europe came before Gridiron so the term stays with Soccer!! NAHANANANANAH!!!! :D
    [/b]
    Fourty Niners (or the Fourty Losers as they have been known lately) :(

    Soccer is too sissy. No real hitting there and no headgear or sholder pads. (boy I hope no hooligans are posting here or I'm in for it!) o_O
     
  20. angie999

    angie999 Very Senior Member

    (jimbotosome @ Feb 15 2006, 01:49 PM) [post=45969]Soccer is too sissy. No real hitting there and no headgear or sholder pads. ([/b]

    You could say the same about baseball or basetball.
     

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