The light-brown colored ration “books” bore more resemblance to folders, with the name of the owner printed on the front (beneath the “If Found, Please Return To” print), and cutout columns where tokens would be placed for the products deemed critical to the war effort, and therefore in limited supply. Sugar and butter were among those products, as was meat. As, beginning in December of 1942, was gasoline.

On this day, August 15, in 1945, on the same day Emperor Hirohito of Japan announced official surrender, wartime rationing was repealed.

While food was understandably limited while the country was at war, gasoline was plentiful, even accounting for military use. The purpose was to conserve tires, then made out of rubber, which at the time was only obtainable from rubber trees grown in the Pacific islands that were cut off during the war.