Chapter 52
Tales From the Barrack-Buy U.S. War Bonds
A prevailing English belief was that the American soldiers were overpaid. Probably the major reason for this view was the large difference between the GI’s pay and that of the much lower paid British soldiers. A realization developed, particularly after the war was over, that it was not so much the Americans were being overpaid, but rather their British counterparts were being woefully underpaid. In any case, a condition existed where the American soldier did appear to have too much money to throw around. The suggested imposition of a required savings plan for the American forces in Britain, to reduce the amount of their ready cash, was not really feasible. Any such savings program would have to be instituted armed services-wide in all of the theaters of operation. Such a widespread program of forced savings was neither practical nor logical. So, other methods were tried in Britain to reduce the amount of the American soldier’s spending in the public eye.
Somewhat similar to forced savings was the encouragement of the GIs to voluntarily have a portion of their pay automatically deposited in the U.S. Army Savings Plan. Additionally, a certain amount of money would be spent on the stations for such things as snack bars, movies, at Commissioned Officers and NCO Clubs, haircuts, tailoring and all of the regularly rationed items available in the PX. Also, the PX sold locally manufactured items, some for use by the GIs, but most were things that could be sent home to the U.S.A. as presents. As the Potteries were close by the Repple Depple, the PX sold fine china products, such as those made by Wedgewood, Royal Dalton and Spode. These items made great presents to send to the folks back home in the States. All of the money spent on the stations would not show up as soldier spending in the towns. At the time, I was not aware of the significance of this fine china, and so I never sent any of it home.
I did, however, send money home to my mother in the form of U.S. Postal money orders. Money orders were really the only method available to convert pounds into dollars in order to send money back to the United States. In fact, the Postal money order was just about the only easy method by which the average soldier could convert any foreign to American currency. Now, there were a few GIs who had managed to accumulate significant amounts of foreign cash, sometimes from gambling, but mostly from black market dealings. The Army soon got wise to the laundering of these illicit funds via the purchase of Postal money orders. So, a limit, based on a soldier’s actual pay, was imposed on the value of money orders that could be obtained each month. As I had touched on earlier there was considerable black market activity engaged in by those criminal members of the U.S. Army who had access to the supplies. (A problem that has plagued all armies for all times.) Some of their “profits” must have been spent on high living, which no doubt involved black market “supplies.” After the limit was imposed on the value of money orders that could be sent back to the United States, there were more than likely other conduits available to transfer the funds home.
Another method of reducing the amount of spend-able cash in the troops’ pockets was to convince them to buy U.S. War Bonds through payroll savings. With my lower pay, and the fact that I was sending money home, these war bonds did not appeal to me. But, apparently, the U.S. Army in England wanted every soldier to buy war bonds. Being a holdout, one of the Company officers spent some time with me, one on one, until I was finally persuaded to authorize the minimum deduction from my pay to buy war bonds. The bonds, when paid for, would be sent directly to my mother for safekeeping until after the war. While I had reluctantly agreed to buy the U.S. War Bonds, I was always aware of the absurdity of the endeavor. Here I was rebating part of my pay back to the U.S. Government, which would pay me interest on the money at some future date. But, this portion of my pay, which I had “invested” in war bonds this month would, so to speak, be returned back to me in my next month’s pay to be reinvested in war bonds all over again.