Beginning in June 1942, the military government in the islands required Hawaiians to exchange all paper currency for newly printed bills that bore “Hawaii” in large print on the back and small print on the front. On January 10, 1942, Emmons issued an order that restricted individuals in the Hawaiian Islands from possessing more than $200 in cash per person and $500 per business.
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Emmons, instituted measures to prevent US currency circulating in the islands from falling into Japanese hands in the event of an invasion. In response, the military governor of Hawaii, Lieutenant General Delos C. Immediately after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, American leaders feared a full-scale Japanese invasion of Hawaii and the continental United States. Some of America’s paper currency also underwent wartime alterations. The Mint purposefully placed the large mint marks on the coins so that they could be withdrawn from circulation once the wartime emergency had passed. Americans could identify the silver nickels, however, by the large “P,” “D,” and “S” mint marks located above the image of Monticello on the coins’ reverse. The new silver five cent coins saved an estimated 800,000 pounds of nickel and 1.8 million pounds of copper for the war effort, while also not changing the weight and appearance of the coins. All told, the Mint struck more than 870 million silver nickels from 1942 to 1945. In order to comply with this mandate, the Mint abandoned the coin’s prewar alloy of 75 percent copper and 25 percent nickel in favor of a new composition that consisted of 56 percent copper, 35 percent silver, and 9 percent manganese. On March 27, 1942, Congress ordered the Mint to remove all nickel from the composition of five cent coins by October 8, 1942. The US Mint also redesigned the nickel during World War II. The penny was not the only coin that underwent a makeover to support the war effort. While steel cents lasted for just one year, the Mint produced shell case cents from 1944 to 1946. This mixture restored the penny’s traditional reddish brown appearance. By using metal from recycled shell casings, the Mint was able to produce pennies with a composition of 95 percent copper and 5 percent zinc. In response, the Mint changed the composition of pennies again in 1944. The new coins confused vending machines because of their lighter weight, and people occasionally mistook steel cents for dimes because of their color. The resulting steel cents, produced exclusively in 1943, saved enough copper to manufacture 1.25 million artillery shells.ĭespite the valuable contribution of steel cents, Americans were not pleased by the change from brown to silver-colored pennies. The Philadelphia, Denver, and San Francisco mints churned out nearly 1.1 billion steel cents and, in doing so, saved more than 40,000 pounds of tin for the war effort. After experimenting with materials ranging from tempered glass to plastic, the Mint decided to change the composition of one cent coins from 95 percent copper, 4 percent zinc, and 1 percent tin to steel with a thin coating of zinc to prevent rusting. In response, Congress passed a bill in December 1942 that authorized the US Mint to explore the use of alternative materials for pennies in an effort to conserve thousands of pounds of industrial metals for the war effort. Even the money in Americans’ pockets was redesigned to help win the war.Īs the United States accelerated production of everything from planes and ships to tanks and artillery shells after it entered the war in December 1941, the nation faced critical shortages of copper, zinc, and tin. The US government instituted rationing of commodities such as sugar, meat, gasoline, tires, and paper. Although the continental United States was spared destruction during the conflict, the wartime transformation of the US economy wrought many changes in Americans’ daily lives. World War II was a global conflict that required belligerent nations to fully mobilize their economies in order to support their armed forces. Courtesy National Museum of American History. Top Image: The US Mint produced steel cents in 1943 to save copper for the war effort.