Kodachrome during World War 2

Craig said:

I was seeing some of the very impressive Kodachromes taken during World War 2, and it struck me that everything I have seen was taken by an "official" photographer. Was Kodachrome available for general sale in the 1939-45 period, or was it's supply and processing restricted to government departments? I'm sure it would have been expensive, but could a civilian even buy it?

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I have 8mm Kodachrome movies taken during WW2. The film was not regulated by the government but availability was regulated by the ever-present law of supply and demand. Our only camera store in town limited movie film 8mm Kodachrome sales to one roll per customer per year. My father did not shoot 35mm Kodachrome so I don't know about that and I imagine 4x5, 5x7, and 8x10 were in extremely short supply to the few professionals who used them......Regards!

oldtimermetoo said:

I have 8mm Kodachrome movies taken during WW2. The film was not regulated by the government but availability was regulated by the ever-present law of supply and demand.

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You are referring to the USA.

AgX said:

You are referring to the USA.

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Well yes, agX, information from Germany was a little hard to come by during those days.......Regards!

No reason to be ironic. This thread has no geographical specification (see title and first post). Thus a statement without geographical specification is confusing.

Concerning Germany, Kodak had two plants running there througout the war. That there is no information about that is to blame on Kodak who wiped out that part of their history.

AgX said:

. This thread has no geographical specification (see title and first post). Thus a statement without geographical specification is confusing.
.

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That's fair. I was actually thinking of Canada as the market, as we were something between the UK for very tight rationing, where I wouldn't have expected Kodachrome to be available, and the USA that was much less affected by the wartime shortages. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised, but I didn't know Kodachrome was available in Germany during wartime. I had assumed ( that nasty word!) that the German market would have preferred Agfa products.

I didn't specify it, but I was mainly thinking of sheet film availability. As far as I can tell from a 1940 Kodak Booklet I have on Kodachrome there was only 2 places in the world that processed sheet Kodachrome at that time: Rochester, and Hollywood, California. Once the USA entered the war I would be surprised if there was regular mail between Germany and the USA that would allow film to be processed. Maybe there was, I have no idea.