Britain needs bones

I was at Eden Camp military museum yesterday. It is mostly themed specifically on world war 2.

One of the exhibits featured a poster asking for bones. There was a large bucket full of bones in the mockup scene. Also in the scene were piles of rags.

I get that rags could be recycled for thread and new fabrics. But why bones? I briefly considered the obvious. That bones can be boiled to make a nutritious stock, but then I figured people back then would have used any bones they had spare for their own stock.

So can anyone satisfy my curiosity? Why did Britain needs bones?

 

My thinking is, that, because the big thing during the war was Dig for Victory, that bones were sourced to be ground down and used as bonemeal.

 

I had a feeling you would remember those days mate.

 

We used to call it animal glue, had a trade name I think, came in beads that you boiled up in water.

 

Newport used to have a glue factory, and if the wind was in the wrong direction the stink was appalling.lol

 

In one of the exhibits, the place did stink. It didn't just happen to stink, it stunk on purpose. Part of the scene recreation. By the time we got to that part we were running out of time so I didn't have time to read everything. I wonder if they were attempting to portray the stinky environment you describe.

 

This is the stuff we used to use.
http://www.originalmarquetry.co.uk/product_details_178.htm

 

In 1941, the Department of National War Services put in place a nation-wide salvage program. Households across the country were asked to collect metals, paper, bones, rags and fat. It wasn't done for the environment but rather for the war effort. Metals from old machinery, trucks and cars were recycled into airplanes, jeeps and tanks. Not only did this benefit the war effort but it cleaned up the countryside. Things that no longer worked or had been replaced by something more modern were usually just abandoned in a field, the woods or the backyard. The Summerside IODE collected enough scrap metal to raise three hundred dollars towards a bomber plane the National IODE was buying for the air force. Paper was recycled to churn out newspapers filled with war news and propaganda. Newspapers were the main source of communication for the time. The military also put out papers in Europe for the soldiers. Rags were collected for the making of blankets and bandages. Bones were made into glue for airplane construction as well as being used in munitions. Housewives were asked to save the fat from the cooking of meat and fowl for the making of dynamite. One pound of fat would make one pound of dynamite.

 

Photographs were requested, so that the authorities, could asses things like beaches to land on, significant land marks, both home and abroad
You are correct about the railings pots and pans, so the people felt involved in their war effort
A cast iron aeroplane would have been interesting :-)

 

Still got houses around here with front walls where you can see the railings were cut off.

Surely steel was needed, and could the railings have not been converted into steel, they were probably wrought iron I would have thought.

Cutting it off and dumping it was surely counterproductive, as there was probably better things for people to be doing than cutting off railings and dumping them in the sea.