Looking for World War !! Home Front Books

So, from some of my history classes, documentaries I have seen, and stories passed down about my grandparents, World War !! demonstrated some good examples of resourcefulness, frugality, and sustainability. I'm very curious to learn more about this, and most of what I have focused on is the Victory Garden aspect.

Does anyone have suggestions on WW2 books that cover all aspects of frugality, rationing, and resourcefulness that occurred in WW2?

You know the story behind "carrots are good for your eyesite?"

I posted about this before. The english invented radar so had advanced warning of enemy planes coming. But questions arose about how they reacted so quickly. The English leaked out that the planes were spotted by soldiers that had superior eyesite from eating carrots.

Oh, carrots was one of the few abundant crops in war torn England. A win win.

Google 'Dig For Victory'.

The grandparents and parents did the DFV thing but, as was the custom, men also grew flowers to attract pollinators, sell, and to simply brighten things up. In fact, they regularly entered them into local/State flower shows. (It wasn't considered effeminate back then, just a well rounded life interest.)

Found this educational poster a few minutes ago:

Did you look on the gutenberg project? I know they have cookbooks from world war 1 not sure about 2. They get new books every year. gutenberg.org

Kalaina Nielson wrote:Did you look on the gutenberg project? I know they have cookbooks from world war 1 not sure about 2. They get new books every year. gutenberg.org

Thank you! I'll go check that out!

I'm kinda looking for a single book that has curated a bunch of primary source-documents, but just looking at the primary source documents themselves may have to do.

I'm in New England, Zone 5b, to be exact. Is there anyway to adjust the DFV dates so that someone in the US could use them? I asked once on another forum and got told, "No."

TIA!

Hi Jenny - I think you'd have to look up each crop for your area and adjust the planting/harvest date accordingly - no one chart could cover the range of the US climates I think. Also there are other crops that you can probably grow, that they would not have been able to grow reliably in much of the UK during WW2, or just were muich less common. Unless you want to just recreate a WW2 victory garden, you may be best using a US planting chart as a starting point.

According to gardeningknowhow.com, H1a =USDA 13, and H7 = USDA 5.  Most of GB is USDA 8. Costal regions are 9.  Selected interior areas are zone 7.