Other Food Notes

[connie]

Campsites moved and conditions changed. Sometimes there may have been a makeshift mess in the field. Sometimes I picture food being issued to lines out in the open. I can't picture what the cooking equipment looked like. And, I have very little picture of what was consumed when things were relatively routine. I know that green vegetables and fresh foods were rare. I assume most came from cans. I know there was pudding sometimes. I know fresh eggs in shells weren't part of the menu. What can you tell me to flesh out the picture? Or, what do offspring remember being told about what your parents experienced in the line of meals?

P.S. Floyd has some interesting food notes in the 10th post under Daily Work - preparations in England 106thdivision.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=duties&action=display&thread=89

[Carl W.]

Some interesting wartime pictures:



Here's a picture of a squad in line for chow being served during the Ardennes Offensive.



US soldier eating his rations in January 1945, Belgium.



"Foxhole banquet"

[connie]

The rave reviews that this food item will get probably deserve a whole subject thread!

It was protein. It was convenient. It certainly aided in the survival of our troops. I read one note home where a fellow thanked his wife for a package, but asked that she please send no more spam. This was one item that the Army seemed to be providing in ample supply....

Do you have additional comments on the supply, frequency, and creative use of spam?

[floydragsdale]

Hello:

My brother was in the Air Corps. He will not eat Spam, even to this day! To listen to him, you'd think they had it three times a day!

I served in two different Infantry Divisions, however we never saw the first bite of the stuff. I like it but many former G.I.'s that I know will not eat the first bite.

Spam would have been considered a luxury to 106 Division men.

Floyd,
2nd Btn., 424th Regiment

[connie]

Under Equipment/ Mess Kits, 106thdivision.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=equipment&action=display&thread=213 my brother mentioned that the clip on Dad's non-regulation mess plate was for attaching a fork so the plate could be dunked in the water dip. I recently caught a glimpse of this sort of thing happening in a movie about the Navajo code talkers in the Pacific. I saw men moving through a clean-up line and dipping their mess plates in a series of tubs of water. But, I couldn't see close up to catch what held the plate when it was dipped. That Dad's plate was dipped by holding onto a fork attached to the plate's clip. But this raises several other questions.

1. Did the regulation plate have a clip for this purpose?
1. A. If not, how were they dipped in what I assume was boiling water?

2. What about the fork, knife, and spoon? How were they cleaned? (It seems logical that if the plate had a clip capable of holding all three, it might be possible to dip the plate while holding the utensils and then to dip the utensils while holding the plate, but I don't know if this was actually the way it was done.

3. That dipping water in the movie looked very clean. If this was accurate, I assume there was a scraping or even a rinsing process prior to the dipping. I'm curious about the details. (Rubber scraper?)

[Carl W.]

Connie

from what I know the Army still uses the same technique of cleaning mess kits as they did during WWII. The mess kit consists of two seperate plates, which can be put together and stored in the meat can pouch of the haversack (external pouch on standard GI backpack). The one piece of the can has a handle and the other piece has an attached D-ring which allows for this piece to be slipped over the handle of the other part of the mess kit can. WWII army eating utensils had a slit in the handle which allowed them to also be slipped over the mess kit handle. When this was done, the entire kit (cans and utensils) would be hanging from the mess kit handle.

The Army had a manual dishwasher system that basically consisted of 4 garbage cans, filled with water and immersion heaters. Each soldier would pass the line of cans and dip his mess kit in each can, making it clean and decontaminated after the routine. The first can is the waste can, then three cans with immersion heaters, mounted as follows: wash can, rinse can, and final rinse can.

I believe they call this the 'field dishwashing battery'.

Anyone who knows more on the subject, feel free to correct me on this.

[connie]

Carl,

Thanks. This gives me a much better picture of standard procedure. This gives a lot clearer picture of the standard process.

I'll still have to figure out how Dad did his clean-up. He carried a non-standard plate.

The plate measures 11 3/4 inches in diameter and is heavy duty Aluminum made by Mirro. It is segmented into 3 different sections and has a clip through a hole near the edge. There was no handle on the plate and no nesting mess kit.

My brother Stan says, logically, that he was told by dad that the mess fork was attached to this clip for dipping/ washing purposes. I am guessing that after washing the plate, he could very well have attached all three utensils to the clip and held the plate while he dipped the utensils. It's certainly not a vital piece of information. But it is interesting to get the picture. The sequence of garbage cans helps me see how it was done.

Thanks!

Connie

PS. For a picture of the standard mess kit, see the one Carl put in the mess kit thread under "equipment" 106thdivision.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=equipment&action=display&thread=213

[connie]

Looking at the photo of the fellows in line for chow, I wonder... The fellow at the front of the line who is apparently serving food, is sitting in front of a small cardboard box. I wonder about what he is serving? I expected to see some kind of pot over heat. Can anyone tell me more about what we are seeing?

[floydragsdale]

Hello:

The box looks like what was called a ten-in-one ration. That is, one of those boxes had enough food in it to serve ten men. Armored units sometimes had those rations fastened to their armored vehicles.

The German Army certainly disrupted supply lines during the B.O.B.; I recall going for several days at a time when we didn't have rations; we ate whatever we could get our hands on. The only food I had one day was a piece of cheese which I found laying in the fresh snow. Where it came from didn't matter. It was something to eat and it felt good going into an empty stomach.

I notice that these G.I.s have overshoes on. This is a luxury that our Company never had until March 1945; almost a time when we didn't need them.

I have a story to tell about this one (rations); however it's time to sign off and have a glass of home brew (I make my own & call it my sleeping pill). It subdues my "head noise" that is a leftover from WWII.

Floyd,

424 Gt.

[bigjohn]

In the second photo I notice the soldiers cup has black scorch marks on it, no doubt from the many ingenious ways the GI's would heat up their coffee.

[floydragsdale]

A hot meal on the front lines was a scarce occasion. There are two hot meals that come to mind.

The 16 of December 1944,G Company cooks prepared a hot meal for midday. That was the time the front line troops were getting low on ammunition. I volunteered to go to Company Head quarters and get it.

Upon my arrival at Co. Hq., wide eyed cooks wanted to know, “What’s going on up there?”. The noise of exploding shells and small arms fire was abundant all morning. Our Company kitchen crew had prepared a hot meal. There was no Mess Hall; the kitchen equipment, stoves & all were out in the open. Refusing to accept the offer for something to eat, I went back to the front lines with a load of ammunition.

My minds “eye” can still see the cooks & pans of steaming hot food and no chow line the at G Company Head Quarters. There was no way to deliver the food “up front”; so all of it went to waste.

Christmas day, Brigadier Bruce Clark promised us a hot turkey dinner with all the trimmings. Yet, by the time it was brought to the troops it was ice cold. After taking time out to eat all went into battle. For some soldiers that was to be their last Xmas Day and last dinner.

There may have been other days when a hot meal was available, yet I don’t remember them.

Most of the time a soldiers chow was a K ration, D bar, or whatever was at hand. Once, a piece of cheese, laying in fresh fallen snow was my meal for the day.

Having a canteen full of fresh drinking water could be a predicament too. My supply of water purifying pills was zero at a time when I needed a drink. It appeared that a nearby stream was a spring, consequently, temptation overwhelmed me and I drank from it. A few days later I regretted that decision.

Hot meals “up front” were were in short supply.

Floyd
424th Regiment.

[connie]

Floyd,

Thanks for opening a window into your eating experiences. I was surprised to learn that rations seemed to be the norm for you. I guess I assumed that when not on the move or under fire, most units would have their own working kitchens attempting to turn out one hot meal a day. So this was a real revelation to me. (Of course you were under fire or on the move a lot during this period...)

The water purifying halizone (sp?) tablets were on my mind this AM as I read another man's account of this period. Separated from his unit, he had a supply of these but little else. Those little pills were probably worth their weight in gold...

Thanks again. May the new year be good to you.

Connie

[floydragsdale]

Hi Connie:

When we were ordered to withdraw from our battle stations on or about the 18th of December part of the orders were "leave all heavy equipment behind."
Needless to say that included the kitchen equipment.

All through the B.O.B. days many things were scarce. Most of us did without food for one and two days at a time.

The day we hiked 45 miles getting out of a trap, it had been several days since I had any thing to eat.

After taking a break, an officer shouted, "OK men, on your feet." I felt exhausted and didn't think I could walk another step. So, I didn't get on my feet and continue on. On Officer who was at the rear of the column noticed me and said, "OK soldier get up." I replied, "Sir, I don't think I can walk another step." He remarked, "Alright soldier, you sit there!" Then he looked back and said, "Do you see that bend in the road back there?" "Yes sir, I said." His answer was, "In another ten minutes you'll see a king tiger tank coming around that bend." That officer would have made a good football coach. I could feel the adrenalin flowing through my veins. That remark gave me enough energy to hike until after midnight that day.

When that hike was over, we had foot inspection. All of us had to take our shoes and socks off in the icy cold air. On the spot, we lost 50% of what troops were left of the outfit because of trench foot. After that, none of them returned to front line duty.

Brrrr, it makes me shiver to recall that incident.

That's the day we walked through a mine field and the man in front of me almost set a surface mine off. Had that happened, I doubt if I would be sending this reply.

Some of us must have been like a cat with nine lives.

Floyd,
424th Regiment