US Military History Throughout The Years

Short bits or history you know and some you may not!

• Rationing Rubber: Saturday, December 27, 1941 – The US government announces the rationing rubber due to shortages during the early years of WW2. The rationing was to ensure there would be enough rubber for military and important civilian uses. Civilians would be limited to 5 tires per a car, with any others to be given over to the government. In order to get a new tire a local rationing board would have to approve it and new tires were mainly limited to public health and safety vehicles as well as essential trucking services. In 1942 the government held a drive to collect donated rubber, with a penny given for every pound donated of rubber. Though 450,000 pounds of rubber were collected, in the form of items like old tires, boots and raincoats, the rubber was found to be of poor quality and not usable for the military. Rationing of rubber would continue till 31 DEC 1945.
• UK War Debts: Friday, December 29, 2006 – In order to finance its portion of the war the UK would seek funds from the USA in the form of the Lend Lease Act. The USA would supply participants with war material, food and other goods so they could continue to fight. On this day the UK would make its final payment to repay the money it borrowed. In total the UK would borrow around $4 billion dollars (in todays money) and their final payment would be around $83 million. In 2015 the UK began paying back debt from the Napoleonic Wars, over a century after those debts were incurred in the first place.
• Holdout: Tuesday, January 1, 1946 – Months after the formal surrender of Japan during WW2 and US occupation 20 Japanese soldiers would finally surrender. The Japanese soldiers had been hiding in tunnels on the island of Corregidor, an island that had been captured by the Allies nearly a year before in February 1945. They would find out about the surrender of Japan when collecting water and reading a newspaper that covered the wars end. After finding out the war was over they would surrender, to a lone US serviceman. As recently as the 1990’s reports and sightings of Japanese holdouts, but it is almost certain that none continued up to that point and they were merely just to attract attention to the area.

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