December 7, 1941 - A Day Of Remembrance

Well, I was in the third grade and don't actually remember how I heard about it, but, but as an 8 year old, I remember being petrified of the whole thing - It was a beginning of a whole new way of life for many, although farmers were much more fortunate when it came to rationing during the war.

We became more self sufficient than ever - We used maple sugar and syrup for sweetening as sugar was rationed - gasoline was rationed, so driving was pretty much only as required - I remember Pepsi Cola was very scarce and they had a horrible tasting soda on the market called Moxie.

Young men were drafted and off to war and letters took a long time and were few and far between. Women took on men's jobs in factories and elsewhere and there are probably few of us that haven't lost a relative in World War II or had someone disabled.

I don't believe there were any cars built between 1942 and 1946 and there were many old cars on the road. We drove our 1935 Plymouth with rusted fenders and thick blue smoke coming out of the exhaust for many years until about 1951. In 1949 we purchased a Ford Tractor and had to be on a waiting list for it for some time as manufacturing in the U S switched over from making wartime products.

There are a number of things on the Internet that you can look at, however one that I found was:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1296093/posts

There are also a couple of links that show casualties - each of those below for different branches of the service - So if you remember someone or was told about someone that was a casualty in WWII, you can check it out on these two web sites:

http://www.archives.gov/research/arc/ww2/army-casualties/

http://www.archives.gov/research/arc/ww2/navy-casualties/index.html