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Copra is dried coconut meat. It is valued for its
high content of coconut oil, the most important tropical oil in
1941. Coconut oil was used in everything from soaps to
edible lubricants (used in food processing machinery). Most
American soap contained a pound of tropical oil for every two
pounds of domestic fats or oils when war broke out. The author
recalls his grandmother popping popcorn in pure coconut oil, which
yielded a rather distinctive taste.
Coconut oil can be used as diesel fuel in sufficiently
warm climates, where temperatures do not drop low enough for the
oil to congeal. The Philippines
have such a climate, and guerrilla
forces there made use of coconut oil as a substitute for diesel
oil.
Coconut palms require a tropical climate to thrive, with
constant warm temperatures and high moisture. This restricts
coconut plantations to oceanic or coastal regions within 25° of
the equator. The South Pacific is nearly ideal coconut
country, and the only economic development in many backwards jungle regions, such as the Solomons, was coconut
plantations. Productivity was around 3500 coconuts per acre (8000
coconuts per hectare) per year.
Unripe coconuts contain coconut water, which is rich in potassium and other electrolytes and contains some sugar. The concentration of solids is low enough that coconut water could be used as a safe substitute for stream water, which might be contaminated. However, Japanese troops in the South Pacific found that rice boiled in coconut water was unpleasantly sweet.
Surprisingly, coconut-shell char, a byproduct of copra
production, was listed as one of seventeen strategic materials
that could not be produced in adequate quantities within the United States and whose
import was deemed critical. It was considered essential for use in
gas masks.
References
The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia © 2007, 2011-2013, 2016 by Kent G. Budge. Index
