Havoc on the Home Front Impacted Christmas

Female Santa of the 1940’s

From: “The Voice of the Angels”, 11th Airborne newspaper, vol. 201

Fewer men at home resulted in fewer men available to dress up and play Santa Claus.  Women served as substitute Santas at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York City and at other department stores throughout the United States.

During WWII Christmas trees were in short supply because of lack of manpower to cut the tress down and a shortage of railroad space to ship the trees to market.  Americans rushed to buy American-made Visca artificial trees.  The electric lights that were designed in the 1940’s are still in use today.

Artificial tree in 1942 Sears catalog.

Travel during the holidays was limited for most families due to the rationing of tires and gasoline.  Americans saved up their food ration stamps to provide extra food for a fine holiday meal.

Vintage Christmas

Many ornaments were made with aluminum and tin, a highly rationed item.  As a result, families opted to make their own ornaments.  Magazines provided ideas and patterns especially designed for non-priority war materials, such as paper, string and things found in the backyard.

Popular hand-blown German-made ornaments, as well as exotic Japanese-made ornaments, were thrown away with the outbreak of the war in support of their soldiers.  The Corning Glass Company, out of New York, started to make ornaments in response to this occurrence.

Unsilvered Corning ornaments.

Not only did the population feel better about using American-made decorations, but also Corning could make more ornaments in a minute than it would take a German glass blower in one day.

Vintage tree turner

These 1940’s unsilvered glass Christmas ornaments were made for a less than 3 year period during WWII, when silvering agents were unavailable for consumer products.  The box itself is the earliest Shiny Brite red and tan version.  Many war ornaments had paper caps due to metal shortages.

Some people wanted a snowy look on their trees so their solution was to mix LUX soap powder with water and then brush the branches with the concoction.

Click on images to enlarge.

############################################################################################

Military Humor – 

Helicopter-reindeer season!

Barbara Haddock Taylor} [Sun Photographer] #9306

 

 

 

 

 

 

#############################################################################################

Farewell Salutes – 

Lemuel Apala – Wilson, OK; US Army, WWII, ETO, Sgt Major

William Bluhm – Chicago, IL; US Army, WWII, Signal Corps, Bronze Star

“Man at the Wall”

James Bray – Huntsville, AL; US Army Air Corps, WWII, PTO, Co C/457 Artillery/11th Airborne Division

“Tony” Louviere Sr. – Norco, LA; US Army Air Corps, WWII, 101st Airborne Division

Avis McCormick – Auckland, NZ; WRNZNS WREN # 511, WWII

Michael Norelli – Albany, NY; US Navy, WWII, PTO, SeaBee

Dillard Pierce – Louisville, KY; US Army, WWII, Tech 5, 313th Combat Engineer Battalion

Fulton Singleton – Parsonsburg, MD; US Army Air Corps, WWII, PTO, Co. F/127th Engineers/11th Airborne Division

Robb Travis – Peoria, AZ; US Navy, WWII, USS Hollandia

Jim Wilson – Corriganville, MD; US Air Force, Vietnam, MSgt., (The Man at the Wall)

############################################################################################