Army regulations specify that suspenders of commercial design are authorized as optional purchase items that may be worn only by males in dress uniforms. In those cases, the suspenders are not allowed to be visible when worn. Our leather-end suspenders for personnel in the Army Finance Corps provide extra support to give you confidence during special ceremonies and prestigious events.
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In an age where many consumers can simply wave their smart phones at cash registers to pay for retail purchases, the idea of being paid in cash seems as old-fashioned as quill pens and powdered wigs. But the reality is that the use of checks for payroll disbursements, both in the military and the civilian sector, didn’t really catch on until after the Second World War. For members of the Finance Corps in the first half of the 20th Century, this meant having significant amounts of “folding money” on hand come payday.
Just what type of cash the Finance Department handed out, however, evolved over the course of the war, thanks in part to the universal acceptance of the U.S. dollar as a medium of exchange.
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When the Japanese invaded the Philippines in 1941, they were able to seize many of the nation’s banks, including the central bank in Manila. In the smaller “branch” banks were substantial amounts of U.S. dollars, or “greenbacks”—but the central bank in Manila also housed large deposits of gold and silver that served as the backing for the currency when it was used in international trade.
Gold and silver, of course, were (and in many places still are) accepted across the globe as money, especially in the form of bullion as payment for large transactions. But U.S. dollars were almost as widely accepted because they were, for all intents and purposes, as “good as gold”—and the Japanese could use those paper dollars to buy anything they would normally have had to pay for with gold or silver.
The solution? Establish an “in-theater” currency, or scrip, that troops could use as legal tender where they were deployed, but which would not be recognized outside that zone. During the latter part of World War II, for instance, GIs stationed in Hawaii were issued scrip that could only be spent in that territory, but which they could exchange for real U.S. dollars when they returned home on furlough or after being discharged. Businesses would bring the scrip the GIs had spent to the Army, where they would be reimbursed with U.S. dollars.
Similar currencies were issued by the Finance Corps for use by soldiers serving occupation duty following the war in both the European and Pacific theaters. While this paper money is of no real value today except to collectors, they serve as a reminder not only of U.S. victory in the war, but also of the Finance Corps' resourceful solution to a significant problem.