 As before, everything was in short supply, but the U-boat threat made shipping doubly uncertain, and the letterbooks are full of doleful records of consignments lost at sea.Occasionally an author, too, would be reported missing or dead, as well as staff who were now scattered over the battlefields of the globe.DORA, the Defence of the Realm Act, required the surrender of all nonessential metal for the manufacture of armaments, and many valuable electrotype plates were melted down by government order.