a soldier’s pay? Well I did, and found a good article in an old Time magazine Sept. 30th, 1940. Soldiers' Pay - TIME I found it accidently by going to this site: TIME Magazine Covers - TIME Covers - TIME Magazine Cover Archive and typing in "Churchill"; this opened up all the Time covers which had Churchill on them. By looking in the Table of Contents for each mag. I was able to read the old Time magazine articles. That one on the pay scales was in one of them. I have found the "coversearch" option to be very helpful and sort of "cool" in that you get to read the actual articles going back all the way into the twenties. The one following Pearl Harbor directly (there are two) were very interesting as to the "opinion" of my fellow Americans as the news was absorbed. This may belong in the WW2research area, but I dunno really.
I remember posting these in a thread about medic pay awhile back . GI Intelligence Dept. WORLD WAR 2 PAY.
I've found it surprisingly tricky to pin down rates of pay myself in the past. So just to put more stuff in an appropriate place - Some links, primarily from a thread on WW2T we had a while back, omitting some of the links already posted above... : Basic British Army WW2_Pay_Rates. Peoples war: BBC - WW2 People's War - Infantry rates of pay A WAAF Clerk on 2s/2d a day: WWII Stories RAF pay mentioned in this pdf document: RAF_ Royal Naval pay in this scan of the appendix to the 1942 Navy list from Naval history: Ranks, Professions, Trades, Pay & allowances. Cheers, Adam.
From "The Half-Million: The Canadians in Britain, 1939-1945" CP Stacye "In 1939 the basic pay of a Canadian private was $1.30 a day (approximately, five shillings and sixpence); that of a British private began at two shillings (roughly 50 cents) and rose with length of service and proficiency to foru shillings. Taking into account the Canadian device of 'deferred pay,' by which half of the pay of men with no dependants was held back to accumulate interest for them until the end of the war, the difference was not enourmous; but it was there."
Here is another article re the pay rate in the US Army with comparison to civilian rates. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=GGLG%2CGGLG%3A2005-47%2CGGLG%3Aen&q=World+War+II+Pay+Rates&as_q=armed+forces
It is very interesting, but what would the conversion be to modern pay. That we we can see what it would be like being one of these people in terms of today's world.
I have found a bit of stuff for the USA, but not for too many other nations in 1940, the time period of 1940. The year in which that Time article was published. Average Cost of new (2 bdrm) house: $3,920.00 Average wages per year (male): $1,725.00 Cost of a gallon of Gas (regular): 11 cents Average Cost for house rent (2 bdrm): $30.00 per month Table Radio: $16.95 Average Price for a new car: $850.00 D cell battery for flashlight: 10 cents Hoover vacuum: $52.50 If you take 100 gold backed dollars and convert them from 1940 to 2005 non-gold backed dollars, it would be equivalent to $1433.77 in 2005. This was the last year I saw anybody do the conversion in since inflation has been up and down in the past three years in the US it might be hard to figure exactly. Now factor in that the military provided many of the "life necessities" (food, shelter, clothing), the military pay wasn't too bad a deal actually.
