# How were soldiers, sailors, etc, paid during WW2? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 20, 2013, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-soldiers-sailors-etc-paid-during-ww2/676846 "2013-12-20T20:20:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2013, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-soldiers-sailors-etc-paid-during-ww2/676846/21 "2013-12-21T20:02:48Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > Actually I interpreted the question differently: did the soldiers receive checks or cash or coupon books or …? If a soldier wanted most of his paycheck to go to his family how did that happen? During wartime your pay was usually carried “on the books”. On payday, a paymaster would come around and you could draw out whatever you felt you needed for the coming two weeks. As for family, allotments can be made out for a percentage (or dollar amount) of your check to go to your spouse or whomever you designate. This is based on my own experience in Vietnam and during 20 years of service. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2013, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-soldiers-sailors-etc-paid-during-ww2/676846/22 "2013-12-21T20:28:35Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > … > > It may be pertinent that the ‘pay’ was pretty low, even by the standards of the day. Of course a soldier was fed and clothed as well, so what was left of his pay, after he had some sent to his wife, and after deductions for things like lost kit, fines and breakages, was really just pocket money. Good point, one that’s true even today. Pay for low-ranked enlisted personnel in the US military nowadays looks pretty abysmal, perhaps to the point of making people ask why one would risk their life for that when they could just go work at Wal-Mart. One of the biggies then and now is that the military pays for a lot of your expenses on top of your pay. Lots of low-ranking privates, seamen, etc, are young, single men without a family to support. The military provides extremely generous (when compared to the private sector) housing, health, retirement, and educational benefits, and many of these benefits are perks above and beyond pay and the soldier has _zero_ personal outlay for them. In the end, a huge chunk of the seemingly meager pay is pure spending money that you can spend or save however you want. I recall a “friend of a friend” anecdote about an enlisted sailor who pinched pennies over 20 years of service. He never (or hardly ever) ate at restaurants on shore leave, etc., knowing that the mess hall was open every day and the food wasn’t half bad. After 20 years, he had saved up almost 20 years of pay. After he got his discharge, my friend asked what he was going to do. He replied: Whatever I want! ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2013, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-soldiers-sailors-etc-paid-during-ww2/676846/23 "2013-12-21T20:57:48Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > Pay for low-ranked enlisted personnel in the US military nowadays looks pretty abysmal, perhaps to the point of making people ask why one would risk their life for that when they could just go work at Wal-Mart. I heard on NPR yesterday that they will receive a 1% pay raise. That’s less than we state employees. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2013, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-soldiers-sailors-etc-paid-during-ww2/676846/24 "2013-12-21T21:38:09Z")
What’s been said upthread, but to reiterate: in WWII Europe, the belligerent countries all essentially converted to command economies. When there were shortages of everything, rationing and price controls, the currency was more like the Soviet ruble than money as we think of it. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2013, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-soldiers-sailors-etc-paid-during-ww2/676846/25 "2013-12-21T22:25:18Z")
One would have thought that [**_The_ Stafford Cripps**](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stafford_Cripps), having been a member of the British war cabinet, would know more about these matters than almost anyone. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2013, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-soldiers-sailors-etc-paid-during-ww2/676846/26 "2013-12-21T22:32:37Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > As a child in British West Africa, I saw a number of pay parades. The Pay Corps officer sat at a table with his clerk, and my father sat to one side observing. The men would be lined up at ease on the parade ground. > > When a soldier’s name was called, he would march to the desk, salute and repeat his name, rank and number. The Officer would state his pay amount, and the clerk would count it into the man’s hand in notes and coins. Another salute and march off. > > This was in the 40s and I assume that it was the same all through the war. In fact it seems to have been the same during the Napoleonic wars. I was in the British Army in the 60s, exactly the same system, clerk from the Pay Corps sitting at a table, Sgt or WO standing next to him, soldiers one by one marching up, reeling off name, rank, number, and receiving their pay. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2013, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-soldiers-sailors-etc-paid-during-ww2/676846/27 "2013-12-21T23:49:59Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > I was in the British Army in the 60s, exactly the same system, clerk from the Pay Corps sitting at a table, Sgt or WO standing next to him, soldiers one by one marching up, reeling off name, rank, number, and receiving their pay. That is how Mrs. Street told me they were paid at the Library in the 1950’s. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2013, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-soldiers-sailors-etc-paid-during-ww2/676846/28 "2013-12-22T00:10:00Z")
Nm. Warrant officer. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stafford_cripps/32/7167_2.png) [@The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stafford_Cripps)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2013, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-soldiers-sailors-etc-paid-during-ww2/676846/29 "2013-12-22T01:59:22Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > One would have thought that [**_The_ Stafford Cripps**](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stafford_Cripps), having been a member of the British war cabinet, would know more about these matters than almost anyone. That’s Stafford Cripps, a Labour politician with one of the best personal names ever. My user name is The Stafford Cripps, an imaginary militia in the mind of one crappy journalist. Thanks for the informative replies, everyone. Can anyone give any info on the funding of the British Army, and in particular the funding of the armies from Imperial states? Basically, I’m wondering how much we relied on the USA for paying our various armies? ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2013, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-soldiers-sailors-etc-paid-during-ww2/676846/30 "2013-12-22T02:35:11Z")
> [@The\_Stafford\_Cripps](#): > > That’s Stafford Cripps, a Labour politician with one of the best personal names ever. > [@Wikipedia](#): > > He kept rationing in place to hold down consumption during an “age of austerity,” promoted exports, and maintained full employment with static wages. Good Lord. World War II raised the United States out of the Depression and crippled Great Britain. Did his actions help out, or screw things up? Did Great Britain receive money from the Marshall Plan? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2013, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-soldiers-sailors-etc-paid-during-ww2/676846/31 "2013-12-22T15:12:05Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Did Great Britain receive money from the Marshall Plan? > 😕 Yes. In fact, the UK was [by far the largest beneficiary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_plan#Expenditures) of Marshall Plan aid. ---
**Author:** ![Habeed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a587f6/32.png) [@Habeed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Habeed)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2013, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-soldiers-sailors-etc-paid-during-ww2/676846/32 "2013-12-22T15:20:15Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > If you don’t have a bank account, you get yanked aside at boot camp and taken to the nearest financial institution and told to get one right now, soldier! It’s a little more efficient than that. They have you sitting in a room and a representative from a local bank hands out 1 page forms where you can sign up for a checking account if you don’t have one. That bank happened to have ATM branches right on post, of course. (and the checking account did not have any monthly fees, so it was more or less on the up and up.) ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2013, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-soldiers-sailors-etc-paid-during-ww2/676846/33 "2013-12-22T15:59:00Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > Yes. In fact, the UK was [by far the largest beneficiary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_plan#Expenditures) of Marshall Plan aid. I thought it went mostly Germany, probably from reading how the USA is a friendly victor and stuff when I was a kid. I didn’t even think if how France was trashed, and how ruinous it was for Great Britain. Again, the 'Dope fights ignorance! 🙂 Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2013, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-soldiers-sailors-etc-paid-during-ww2/676846/34 "2013-12-22T16:37:58Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > I thought it went mostly Germany, probably from reading how the USA is a friendly victor and stuff when I was a kid. Many Germans think so too, mostly because of fond memories of the country’s very rapid economic recovery in the 1950s. I’ve read economists argue somewhat more cynically, however, that what really boosted the German economy was the Korean War: The American industry was busy producing war supplies, taking a which meant that German exporters of consumption goods had less competition to worry about. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2013, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-soldiers-sailors-etc-paid-during-ww2/676846/35 "2013-12-22T16:57:02Z")
I’m always amazed when reading casual literature about post-war life in Britain as to the hardships of the economy, especially when compared to the fat US '50s. Was there a time when the average citizen daily living post War was better in Germany than in England? ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2013, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-soldiers-sailors-etc-paid-during-ww2/676846/36 "2013-12-22T17:01:30Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > I’m always amazed when reading casual literature about post-war life in Britain as to the hardships of the economy, especially when compared to the fat US '50s. > > Was there a time when the average citizen daily living post War was better in Germany than in England? Rationing of food continued in Britain for **nine years** after the end of WW2 ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2013, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-soldiers-sailors-etc-paid-during-ww2/676846/37 "2013-12-22T17:12:28Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Rationing of food continued in Britain for **nine years** after the end of WW2 Whereas in West Germany, rationing was abolished in 1950. The West German economy was running on full employment duing most of the Fifties, and the government and industrial federations actively promoted immigration to cover labour shortages. I’d say that during most of this era, the standard of living of the average West German exceeded that of the average British. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2013, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-soldiers-sailors-etc-paid-during-ww2/676846/38 "2013-12-22T17:36:41Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Good Lord. World War II raised the United States out of the Depression and crippled Great Britain. > Did his actions help out, or screw things up? Did Great Britain receive money from the Marshall Plan? > 😕 WWII bankrupted Britain. It was the right thing to do. A big loan from the US was finally paid off in 2006. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2013, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-soldiers-sailors-etc-paid-during-ww2/676846/39 "2013-12-22T21:38:20Z")
> [@The\_Stafford\_Cripps](#): > > Can anyone give any info on the funding of the British Army, and in particular the funding of the armies from Imperial states? Basically, I’m wondering how much we relied on the USA for paying our various armies? 1. The armies from the independent Dominions were funded entirely by those countries. Canada financed the Canadian army and navy, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa did the same. 2. They weren’t your armies. Each of the independent Dominions controlled their own armies. They agreed to be under Allied command, but they were not British. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2013, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-soldiers-sailors-etc-paid-during-ww2/676846/40 "2013-12-22T23:55:11Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > Whereas in West Germany, rationing was abolished in 1950. The West German economy was running on full employment duing most of the Fifties, and the government and industrial federations actively promoted immigration to cover labour shortages. I’d say that during most of this era, the standard of living of the average West German exceeded that of the average British. To be fair, wouldn’t we have to consider all of Germany – both East & West? East Germany was much the poorer, more rural, less industrial part – they took much longer to recover. On average, Germany probably lagged behind Britain until the 1990’s I’d guess. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-soldiers-sailors-etc-paid-during-ww2/676846.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-soldiers-sailors-etc-paid-during-ww2/676846.md?page=3)