WW2 Home Front

Rationing of food was also introduced on the home front to help provide more food for troops. At the super market people had to exchange coupons for restricted foods. In 1939 sixty percent of food eaten by British people came from overseas so the war put a huge strain on supplies of food. During this time many food items were in short supply, consequently shoppers were forced to spend hours in queues hopeful for something unusual such as fish. "Sometimes you could get fish but it was always in short supply - first come, first served. You could wait half an hour and still not get any". There were some foods that people were also encouraged to eat like carrots, and potatoes because they were easy to grow and plentiful.
             People also helped the war effort by making weapons. This played an imperative part in how the war on the home front was not only continually fought but eventually won through this means. Children collected scrap metal, and people handed in tin foil to help make bullets. Women worked in factories where they welded and built planes. These women and young children assembled and manufactured the machinery that was used out on the battlefield. Women were needed in much more than keeping home life normal during the war, as men were away fighting. To overcome shortages of workers in 1941 Britain introduced conscription for women to work or join forces in a non fighting role. By 1945 eight out of ten married women and nine out of ten single women had either joined forces in a non-fighting roles or were working in factories. It was the mass production from factories on the home front that enabled the Allies to win the war. " . The Americans kept sending tanks down the road. We kept knocking them out. Every time they sent a tank we knocked it out. Finally we ran out of ammunition and the Americans didn't run out of tanks." The Allied forces had resources easily accessible to them whereas the Axis powers suffered shortages in industry at the crucial points of the war.