World War II scrap metal drives

In 1942, there was a big demand for scrap metal materials for the fighting of World War II. On Oct. 9, 1942, there was big scrap metal drive in Daviess County.

It was estimated that 1.5 million tons of scrap lay useless on U.S. farms. Enough to build 139 modern battleships for the navy! If the average farm generated 125 pounds to be mixed with other materials, each farm could possibly make a 500 pound aerial bomb. If the farmers banned their collection and accumulated 36,000 pounds there would be enough scrap iron to build one 27-ton tank.

The Daviess County USDA war board took the responsibility to encourage the collection of scrap metal from all the local farms. The metal would be taken to the smelters and blast furnaces to be remade. The need for it was vital because many steel plants throughout the country had been slowed down or had to suspend operations because of the lack of material.

On Oct. 9, plans were made for every school and every business in the county to close and to work out their plans such as arranging for trucks, how to collect the scrap, where to sell it, what to do with the money, etc.

The schools and town salvage committees took the lead in the collection. Some people donated their trucks for the project. However, the scrap had to be brought to them as they didn’t have time to go from farm to farm and pick up the metal.

This enabled every man, woman and child to have an opportunity to help. Four Gallatin girls helped in a big way when they removed an entire iron pump from a well in south Gallatin which had been donated. People were willing to help as there were approximately 500 Daviess County boys fighting in the U.S. Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force.

Nearly 300 tons of scrap metal was collected. In Gallatin the scrap was hauled to the Whitfield salvage dump and the Hacker junk yard. Approximately 270 tons of scrap was purchased in the county on scrap day. Including what had been purchased prior to "scrap day" brought the county 457 tons.

Another important campaign was the collection of two million victory keys. The goal was to raise 12,000,000 pounds of metal. The average key contained about 80% nickel silver which was desperately needed by the Navy, particularly the Yale and Corbin type keys. These keys could be deposited in Gallatin stores, namely the Merrigan Grocery, Davis Drug Co., King’s Drug Store, the high school and the Gallatin Publishing Co.

Every penny over the actual cost of the campaign was given to the boys in the service through their United States Organization (USO).