in the junkyard, getting rubber for the WW2 scrap drive, that's my guess

https://forums.aaca.org/topic/341211-period-images-to-relieve-some-of-the-stress/page/609

Platt school children haul a car body for scrap drive, on their toy car, October 1942

https://aadl.org/taxonomy/term/8896

I found a gallery of WW2 civilian efforts, like the scrap drives, victory gardens, etc

Dorothy Lamour in Boston for war bond drive

Victory Garden on a garage

but I'd never learned (until this moment) that cities changed their parks to Victory Gardens! That was not mentioned in the history books I had in high school

all the iron fences were dismantled, even at the state house, and the Governor took the time to make a photo op

shows how Boston Commons looked after the fences were removed

I added these to illustrate the other unknown efforts of the civilians to use every resource to add to the scrap drives... in ways I've never learned of before

and this one surprised me the most, a Checker Taxi fleet parked and the tires removed for the rubber to get used by the military

and I'd never heard of the license plate recycling effort

and I think this is extremely interesting, one of 17 War of 1812 cannons, used as bollards and street edging at the Boston Navy Yard, pulled out and turned in for WW2 scrap. Wow. 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/boston_public_library/albums/72157627973175543/page5

Standard Oil truck used during a rubber scrap drive photographed by Arthur Siegel for the Farm Security Administration

https://www.shorpy.com/node/26901?size=_original#caption

Nebraska farm boy with flat tire, which happened while he was bringing a load of scrap iron to town.

 https://www.shorpy.com/node/26485?size=_original#caption

Bronx boy scouts pushing a jalopy into a wrecking yard for the WW2 scrap drive in 1942

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/vintage-shots-from-days-gone-by-part-2.1154030/page-506#post-13550707

Local auto dealer had been dumping 'jalopies' in this small lake for 15 years, but then retrieved them for the war scrap drive. Shawano Wisconsin, about 25 miles northwest of Green Bay

In 1942, government officials announced, “that all old jalopies, worn-out automobiles unsuited for transportation, must be scrapped to furnish weapons of war for our armed forces, under an edict issued by the automobile graveyard section of the War Production Board.” Many Wisconsin residents stepped up to do their part, but one enterprising car dealer in Shawano saw an opportunity to cash in.

Albert Radtke had operated a new car dealership in Shawano since 1927. The used car business had carved out a significant market niche after the First World War, but not all the trade-in vehicles that Radtke took in were in good enough shape to profitably resell. 

Radtke claimed that he sold around 200 new cars per year and with almost every sale he took in a used car in trade. It a car was resalable, Radtke would put it on the lot. However, in the case where a used car had little market value, Radtke had a different solution. 

He would strip the cars of any useable parts then wait for winter. When freezing weather came, Radtke would tow the junk cars out to the middle of an unnamed frozen lake near Zachow (there aren't any, so, this is misleading) and leave them there. When the spring thaw came, the cars sank to the bottom.

 By 1942, Radtke had been doing this for fifteen years. There were over 500 cars in that lake.

the red marker is Zachow, and the city of Shawano, where his car dealership was, is in the center of the map, and there are no lakes near Zachow. So, it's far more likely that he dumped the cars into the lakes north of Shawano. Keep in mind, he left the cars on the frozen lake for every winter for 15 years. He would need a remote lake no one was bothering to fish in, but large enough to keep dropping cars into, 500 of them. Zachow, mentioned in the story, doesn't have anything that fits the lake size needed

As the wartime scrap metal drives got underway, Representative N. Sherer for Milwaukee’s graveyard section got wind of the car-filled lake and considered it a gold mine. He arranged for local farmer Philip Whitman to recover the vehicles. Radtke agreed to show Whitman which lake they were in, but on one condition. 

Radtke, who did nothing to help, insisted on being paid $1.50 for every car that Whitman snagged with a grappling hook and pulled out with his tractor.

In 1942, scrap automobiles sold for $15 apiece, and scrap metal from a single demolished vehicle, it was estimated, could be processed into 35 50-caliber machine guns, so it was worth Whitman’s time to do this. If nothing else, it was certainly worthwhile to the environmental health of the lake as he dragged 15 cars out in the first day alone.

What a horrible guy. Despicable. 

Anyone want to guess how badly this asshole damaged the biochemistry of the lake by hiding cars in it? How much oil, gas, grease, lead, etc was leaching into the water and making the fish, birds, furry critters, etc sick? As well as the water draining out of the lake via some stream or river

I was born and raised over the north eastern border of Wisconsin in Michigan's upper Peninsula. That the lakes and rivers stay clean, is important to me. That anyone would intentionally foully pollute them just to hide junk is atrocious

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/vintage-shots-from-days-gone-by-part-2.1154030/page-449#post-13506199

https://www.wxpr.org/post/wisconsin-scrap-car-gold-mine#stream/0

https://wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Image/IM6560

Boys collecting paper for scrap drive, May 1942. The paper these boys collected was probably recycled into requisition forms

 Southington, Connecticut

Washington DC

https://www.shorpy.com/node/15347

https://digitalcomicmuseum.com/forum/index.php?topic=7755.0

Spectators had to give a scrap of rubber as the price of admission to watch this car take a mile-high plunge over Stone Mountain, near Atlanta, Georgia, June 21, 1942, as part of the scrap rubber drive.

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/history/the-summer-of-love-and-summers-of-tension-21-iconic-images-taken-on-june-21/collection_6910ce12-0727-5f25-99a4-49cdaa5de6be.html#6

1942 Black Creek Wisconsin, Boy Scouts scrap metal drive WW2

The Scouts helped collect scrap metal during Governor Julius P. Heil's MacArthur Week. The troop of eighteen boys was divided in four divisions and the boys went out among the farms on their bicycles. They stopped at various farms, asked permission to collect scrap and, when it was granted, gathered it in convenient piles to be collected later by the junk dealer's motor truck.

https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Image/IM6573

I've never heard of this before.... but the war effort also focused on the need for 600,000 typewriters for all the communications to and from everywhere

Taking time off between the shooting of scenes at the RKO Studios in Hollywood, Miss O'Hara helped to collect more than 70 typewriters for use by the Army, Navy, and Marines.

Uncle Sam needed 600,000 typewriters for the armed services and contacted all possible typewriter users to urge them to release "1 out of every 4" typewriters for Army or Navy services.

http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu:8000/BROWSE.cgi?db=2&pos=351&inc=50

Detroit Auto Graveyards, scrap metal drive, and the scrap rubber drive 1942.

Automobile production became the leading industry of Detroit and Michigan, and by 1920, Detroit had boomed to become the fourth-largest city in the U.S.

At the same time, the dominant auto industry helped advance the formation of another industry that continues to thrive today, one that’s created more than 500,000 jobs across the nation: the scrap metal recycling industry.

As a rising amount of scrap was being generated at the state’s manufacturing and production plants, recycling firms began to proliferate as it became clear that scrap still had value, including when automobiles had outlived their usefulness.

Just as auto assembly lines produce a certain amount of scrap metal that doesn’t get used and can be discarded, scrap recyclers have demonstrated that there’s still plenty of value and use for it.

And since industrial scrap metal recycling helps manufacturers hold down costs, demand for recycled metals has been on the rise for years.

By World War 2, the ability of Michigan’s Auto Industry to effectively handle mass production was used toward the war effort, as workers delivered Jeeps, tanks, planes and guns by the thousands.

(not very informative, and it's repetitious, but, that's a recycling yard from 1942, and this is the text that accompanied it, editted down for brevity)

http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/822076/825260.html?1515632700
https://glescrap.com/auto-manufacturers-michigan-scrap-metal-recycling

For many photos of the war effort of recycling, the FDR Library: http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu:8000/BROWSE.cgi?db=2&pos=351&inc=50

https://www.vintag.es/2013/11/vintage-photos-of-classic-car-salvage.html
https://hogyantortent.com/napi-erdekes-33/

unexpected consequence of WW2 scrap metal drive just realized...

Union Pacific no longer has tracks near Promontory Summit to celebrate the anniversary of the Golden Spike event.

 They were removed to support the scrap metal projects during World War II.

https://www.up.com/heritage/steam/

rare photo of the scrap metal drives

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1655341931388663/photos/

WW2's changes upon Detroit's normal day to day business

Scrap drives to destroy the cars and trucks and use the steel for making war materials

GM's body making company Fisher Body was making huge anti-aircraft guns, the U.S. Army’s new powerful Stratosphere guns

and on Sept 24th 1945 motorists were waiting for gas to be delivered to the station

All found on http://www.vintag.es/2015/01/25-amazing-black-white-photographs.html

the discarding of Lancasters and other Canadian Military airplanes after VE day

On September 24 the squadron took off for the final leg of its trip. Destination was Pearce, Alberta, from where the Lancasters were to be sold off or destroyed. This leg has been described by one participant as 'how World War II came to the Prairies.' Once out of Winnipeg, the gaggle of Lancasters set about terrorizing the countryside between there and Pearce. Aircraft, even as big as they were, flew under telegraph wires; one, flew so low it over a farm, it collided with a barnyard duck. Another pilot buzzed a train and recalls his last impression as seeing the startled look of disbelief on the engineer's face as he pulled down his blind!"

On arrival at their final destination, the planes were sold for scrap, although some were also burned on site. Trainers were offered in flyable condition. $800 would buy you a Cornell or a Crane. For $900 you could walk away with a Harvard. Anson V's sold for $5000, and a Canso (PBY Catalina to Americans) commanded $25,000.

'Barnyard bombers' were well worth the fifty dollars asking price. To begin with, a farmer could count on recouping his investment by simply draining gas and antifreeze from his plane. Tires were just fine for a farm wagon. A tailwheel fit the wheelbarrow.

 For years to come the carcass would be a veritable hardware store of nuts and bolts, piping and wiring. In the meantime it made a suitable chicken coop for storage shed. One farmer converted the nose of his Anson into a snowmobile. Bit Waco gliders were hauled away just for their packing cases.

found on http://progress-is-fine.blogspot.com

scrap drive for the war effort and the amusement park junkyard

pedal cars in a WW2 scrap metal drive.

WW2 was instrumental in changing the American culture in so many ways, but did you ever hear of car bumpers being donated to the scrap drives?

Rita Hayworth did her part... so if you come across her big old car with no bumpers, now you'll know what happened to them.
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/08/28/Worldwarii/War_changes_fashion.shtml

For an example of immense largese in donating to the scrap drives, read about Panmsy Yount's 1933 Duesenberg Model J Judkins Berline that was turned over to the war effort for it's use as metal for armor plate, or whatever they did with all that steel http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2008/08/ive-posted-before-about-ww2-scrap.html

Rita was so good looking, the richest man in the world Prince Ali Khan gave her a Ghia bodied 1953 Cadillac series 62

I've posted before about the WW2 scrap drives in the US to get more metal to make into planes, tanks, etc... some stuff donated was rare cars

1933 Duesenberg Model J Judkins Berline, one of two made of this body type. This car was purchased new by Frank Yount at the 1933 Chicago Auto Show for his wife Pansy. She donated the car to a WWII scrap drive http://forums.aaca.org/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/531052/gonew/1/1933_Duesenberg_on_the_Scale#UNREAD
Thousands of average-income Americans across the nation reached into their china closets and donated family heirlooms made from metal to the WW II scrap drive as a sign of making a sacrifice. Families looked out their window and saw their second-hand automobiles that were not junk and still capable of providing transportation to their owners. Even though gasoline and tires were rationed, these vehicles were not totally worthless to their owners, yet they were donated to the scrap drive. The scrap drive was more than just a "junk" drive. People gave up items that had sentimental, utilitarian and monetary value. Sacrifices were made.Pansy Yount was the scion to the fortune left to her by her husband whom she deeply admired and respected. Pansy's social status as one of the wealthiest women in the world at that time required she do things in-line of what was expected of her in consideration of her social status. Pansy's desire to contribute to the war effort by participating in the scrap drive required she donate metal representative of value to the donor. For Pansy to collect junk in order to find somthing to contribute to the scrap drive would be considered below her dignity, besides, rich people don't keep junk. In order for Pansy to contribute to the scrap drive with some semblance of making a sacrifice, she would have to donate something representative of value - something like a Duesenberg. And she did. When she found the car got picked up by someone for their own edification she put a stop to that. Her car was going to be processed the same as everyone else's. Pansy had the money to afford whatever she wanted, and that Duesenberg was a symbol of what a person of her stature would contribute to the scrap drive.