war effort

plural war efforts

1. countableuncountableA coordinated mobilisation of a country's resources, both industrial and human, in support of its military forces during a war.

   It meant the Edwardians enjoyed a golden age of rail travel, because independent companies could briefly provide a quality service before being forced into austerity to support Britain's resource-sapping war effort.

   2025 October 15, Howard Johnston, “Public versus private: is there any difference?”, in RAIL, number 1046, page 62

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   During the war, but unrecorded because of the requirements of censorship, a link with the now partly-abandoned Cardiff Railway disappeared with the demolition of Rhydyfelin Viaduct, near Treforest, South Wales, in the latter part of 1942. The steelwork in this structure, amounting to nearly 1,150 tons, was salvaged as scrap metal to assist the war effort.

   1946 January and February, “Notes and News: Demolition of Rhydyfelin Viaduct”, in Railway Magazine, page 52

   Curwen had inherited a printing business in Plaistow, east London. In 1915 the government appealed for scrap metal to help the war effort. Curwen gazed at the 'clever, fussy, pretentious Victorian typefaces spread about his composing room floor' and felt a wave of revulsion. He sent away more than 200 founts of type, retaining just one plain one, Caslon Old Face.

   2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 161