Conkers in World War One

Someone asked me about this subject - horse chestnuts winning the war (Americans call 'em buckeyes) and so I looked and found this piece

During World War I conkers were used in the making of ammunition for small arms and artillery. To make the acetone used in this process, starch was needed, obtained initially from maize, but when supplies of this grew short, school children were sent out to collect conkers, and the starch was extracted from them. Secret factories at Poole in Dorset and King’s Lynn in Norfolk produced around 90,000 gallons of acetone a year. From the Accipiter.