Kent Chronicles

April 5, 2012WWII Home Front

AWS

• Volunteers scanned the skies for Japanese Aircraft.

This isn’t the one in Kent, but from a small town in California!

Scrap Drives

• Items Collected:Tin CansBottlesRubberPaperNylon and SilkAny Metal (Even car bumpers!)Cooking fats and oils

•Why Cooking Fats?Explosives

Blackout Curtains

Kent’s Dimout

• Ends November of 1943

Rationing

• What was rationed?

TiresCarsBicyclesGasolineFuel Oil and KeroseneSolid FuelsStoves

Rubber FootwearShoesTypewritersNylon

SugarCoffeeProcessed FoodsMeats, Canned FishCheese, canned milk, fats

Ways to deal

• Victory Gardens!– Victory Gardens may have provided 9-10 million

tons of produce or a comparable amount to the commercial farms.

– Canning!• New Recipes!• Do without

Saving Rubber

• Do you know what the Victory Speed was?– 35 mph

Best not speed through Kent, the Kent News Journal was full of reports of the police issuing tickets to over excited drivers. In 1943, the average speed of the guilty parties was 42 mph.

Businesses In Kent

• The Food Plants– Libby, McNeil and Libby– Santa Cruz Fruit Packing Company– Washington Frosted Foods

• Manufacturing Plants– Northwest Metal– Pacific Aeromotive (?)