I came across this recent post about a "wartime monopoly game" that admits it included only wooden game pieces instead of metal because of the war effort. Why was this so extreme? I knew metals and other things were rationed and so forth but I never thought such tiny amounts would even be subject to it. Why was the need so great when we had built railroads with seemingly endless mines and metals at our disposal? What greater lengths were taken in kind? What sorts of things were subject to these restrictions? Did it have a lasting effect on anything post-war?
In the UK it was especially severe, with rationing only fully ending in 1954. The severity of rationing during the war was because Britain couldn't get their imports from oversees, something on which they relied heavily upon during the inter-war period. One of the remaining features of wartime requisition in my city is that much of the walls are very short and missing metal railings as they were all removed to be melted down for tanks.