What item were in short supply during World War 2?

Answer 1

Non-essential foods and delicacies were very short in supply worldwide because luxury foods were not considered beneficial in the home front war effort or in the war front. Money for luxury foods was better spent buy war bonds.

Some foods were not grown in some nations since farmers were asked to grow other crops needed to keep the troops and general populace alive.

Rationing controlled the types and amounts of food that could be purchased. However the United Kingdom faced a serious threat on their food supply. The Nazis used submarines known as U Boats to sink merchant cargo ships, a few cruise liners, and military ships. Hundreds of thousands of tons of food for the United Kingdom, Sweden and Ireland went to the bottom of the Atlantic.

On the same token the Axis Forces suffered food shortages because the Allies had sunk their ships and destroyed trains, planes, trucks and carts carrying food to the Axis cities. They also bombed many farms (not always intentionally because they were not able to do precision bombing as bomber planes of today can do).

The Nazis also deprived the Netherlands and other communities of food and they burned farms and seeds. By the end of the war starvation was prevalent.

The common rationed foods on both the allied and axis nations sides were coffee, tea, sugar, flour, oils or fats, milk, bread, certain vegetables and meats, fish in some areas, fruit and chocolate. They were rationed not because they were in short supply necessarily but rather to spread the available goods fairly so the troops could have enough food to fight. It took 3800 or more calories to keep a soldier, sailor, aviator and Marine alive and well enough to wage war.

Adolf Hitler did not enforce rationing until late in the war.

Answer 2

Copper, normal metels and anything the government could get their hands on to make weapons and bombs, Etc.