BackStory Episode 14
Marguerite shopping with ration book, photo taken Cambridge, England, 1947
Despite the ‘surprise attack’ nature of Pearl Harbour, war between Japan and the United States had been a possibility that each nation had been aware of, and planned for, since the 1920s. Japan had been wary of American territorial and military expansion in the Pacific and Asia since the late 1890s, followed by the annexation of islands such as Hawaii and the Philippines, which they felt were close to or within their sphere of influence.
Once Japan and America were at war, the United States was automatically at war with German and Italy, due to ‘the Tripartite Pact’. The first wave of American servicemen arrived in Britain late January 1942. Over a million would eventually come over.
Rationing was necessary in large part because of the difficulty of importing and exporting by sea. Also, many materials, including food, was a priority for the military. The Japanese capture of the principal rubber-producing areas of the Far East eliminated the sources of 90% of the world’s natural rubber, which in those days all tires were made of.
In the US, rationing of materials for clothing was less severe than in England. Marguerite was very lucky to be able to get clothes for her college wardrobe. When she went to England, the rationing was still on, and continued for many years after the war’s end due to the enormous war debt that Britain had incurred. The picture for this Backstory page shows Marguerite shopping with her ration book when she was in England in 1947. (That year, family members pooled their fabric ration coupons for the material to make her wedding dress.) See Instagram @FondlyyoursMarguerite for more pictures for this episode.
Though Marguerite optimistically wishes for an end to the war by the end of 1941, it would be more than two years until D-Day (June 6, 1944), with British, Canadian, American and other Allied troops working together, and another year after that (May 7, 1945) until Germany fell. Japan surrendered on September 5, 1945.
As the war continued, Jackie and Eileen and Jimmy’s mother would receive news that ships that her sons were serving on had been torpedoed. She and her family would suffer not knowing their fate until other letters arrived. Jimmy, who followed his brother Jackie by joining the Merchant Navy when he was only 14 years old, survived 3 such attacks.
In the manuscript of my father’s autobiography, which I only discovered when beginning Episode 13 of the podcast, he describes his clerical job with the Mercantile Marines (an excerpt is in this episode) which he worked at for a few months between finishing school at St. Francis Xavier’s and being called up to the RAF and the Officer’s course he would take at Cambridge University. (He would return there after the war to continue as a student).