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The Homefront
Perhaps even more than in Canada, the Newfoundland homefront was committed
to and totally focussed on the war effort. This was nowhere clearer than in St.
John's, which looked more like a military camp than a capital city for much of
the war. It was there the Newfoundland Patriotic Association and the Women's
Patriotic Association were headquartered. So were the Newfoundland Regiment and
the Royal Naval Reserve.
But all across the Rock, even in the outports where the war was little more
than bulletins nailed to the outside of telegraph shacks, women picked up for
absent men in the fisheries, knit socks and contributed to a dozen funds including
the Patriotic Fund, the Belgian Relief Fund, the Khaki Prisoners Fund, St. Dunstan’s
Fund for Blind Soldiers and Sailors, the Mayo Lind Tobacco Fund, the Fish and
Brewis Fund, the Aeroplane Fund, the Cot Fund, and the Jensen Red Cross Fund.
By the
end of the war, the citizens of the tiny country
had raised $1 million for war charities.
One |
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reason
for that was increased exports and the rising price of fish that benefited the
natural-resource rich economy. |
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