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Post by floydragsdale on Jul 21, 2014 11:14:53 GMT -5
Sanitation was a HUGE problem on or near the front lines.
Drinking water, human waste, mess kits, clothes. Army latrines, or lack of them. Many things effected the life of a Soldier besides the dangers of fighting a war.
I'm amazed that this subject hasn't been mentioned. Maybe it has and I just didn't notice it.
Floyd
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Post by connie on Jul 22, 2014 11:10:13 GMT -5
Floyd,
If the subject came up at all, it was a side note and not a major topic. Thanks for bringing this one up.
As I recall, in your initial site near Grosskampenberg there was a long slit trench near the left flank of the unit and back a bit from where your foxhole was. This was deep (5or 6 feet?) and had to be carefully straddled?
Getting down to the essentials... when you had (or did not have) such plush features as this, did you have any toilet paper?
Connie
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Post by floydragsdale on Jul 22, 2014 18:07:45 GMT -5
Hi Connie:
A popular place to carry toilette paper was in the helmut liner. If I remember correctly a small amount of T papers came with K rations.
Latrine slit trenches were OK when the front was stationary, however that wasn't too often during the bulge campaign. That's is when sanitation problems began.
Floyd
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Post by engineercutoff44 on Jul 22, 2014 23:08:52 GMT -5
Hi Connie: A popular place to carry toilette paper was in the helmut liner. If I remember correctly a small amount of T papers came with K rations.
Latrine slit trenches were OK when the front was stationary, however that wasn't too often during the bulge campaign. Thats is when sanitation problems began.
FloydHello Floyd!the toilet paper for the K-Rations was made for the most part by Scott paper company,and was contained in a small sleeve bearing the company name where it was produced and something like for use of the US Army on it,as far as the rations themselves are concerned they were and still are a story for themselves,they were designed to give anybody nourishment eating them,sure but with one major drawback,the highly feared,"Compo Plug" they were conceived also to keep you from going too often in a field environment so when you had to go you thought your body was cleaning itself from the inside out.Having clean water at the time too was a gamble with your and your buddys life on the front lines,first the water had to be appropriated from somewhere stream,pond,or snow then Ideally boiled down and disinfected this just didn't happen as a fire would make you a perfect target for anything out there,leading to Diarreah and other typical front line illnesses.Going to the crapper was a gamble too as there were sporadic tree bursts everywhere showering fragments everywhere most soldiers just arranged themselves with the situation and went in their foxholes keeping as low a profile as possible.Another problem was Head,and body lice and scabies I have found lice combs in foxholes up here from them fortunate enough to have them,most did not sorry for the graphic description but some things must be said to get the full picture of what happened up here |
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Post by floydragsdale on Jul 23, 2014 9:42:05 GMT -5
Good Morning:
Thanks for your input. I'm well acquainted with what you described, however I didn't realize that K rations were designed to "stop a person up" I recall eating more C rations, D bars and anything we could lay our hands during the Bulge Campaign. Also, getting decent drinking water was a problem for some of us. We carried halizone pills with us to put in our canteens to purify our drinking water but some of us ran out of those pills. The lack of those pills was one of the reasons, besides being wounded, that put me in a hospital for a few weeks.
The life of an Infantry Soldier, on the front lines, was a very primitive one, to say the least. Now that I think about it, wearing the same clothes 24/7 for weeks at a time was not good for ones health either. We must have smelled like the inside of an old catcher's mitt.
Floyd
424th Regiment
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Post by engineercutoff44 on Jul 25, 2014 11:59:03 GMT -5
I know the feeling Floyd even in our modern times been there as well not pretty but necessary sometimes found lots of empty halzone bottles up here not having any was an easy ticket to getting the shits pardon my French half the life on the front lines is improvisation to try to achieve a modicumth of comfort...
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Post by floydragsdale on Jul 26, 2014 18:58:19 GMT -5
Hello Michelle & Connie:
When this Soldier was in the Hospital he had multiple problems; one of them being a high fever. A Hospital medic came by my stretcher (all of us were on stretchers) and offered me a fried chicken dinner that I outright refused. Perhaps they were testing me to see if I was faking illness or something.
An Army Nurse came by and asked me quite a few questions and all I could say was, “I just don’t feel well at all.”
Col. Reed, of the 424th Regiment was on a stretcher, next to me for several days.
It wasn’t too many hours before I had need for a bed-pan and that was the beginning of the G.I. - - - - - you know what! At home on the farm it was called the back door trots.
The Army Dr. asked me to count the number of times that I had need for that pan however, when I passed the thirty count I lost the tally.
There was an Army Phraseology for the ailment that possessed my body but I have forgotten what it was.
The Army didn’t issue Purple Hearts for whatever it was either but if they did, I would have one with several Oak Leaf Clusters
Finally, when the Army sent me to a convalescent hospital, I must have set a record for making a mad dash for the latrine (mens’ room for those who don’t know army terminology) as I zoomed by others who were going to the same place
Floyd
424thRegiment
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Post by engineercutoff44 on Jul 27, 2014 5:20:17 GMT -5
Hello Michelle & Connie:
When this Soldier was in the Hospital he had multiple problems; one of them being a high fever. A Hospital medic came by my stretcher (all of us were on stretchers) and offered me a fried chicken dinner that I outright refused. Perhaps they were testing me to see if I was faking illness or something.
An Army Nurse came by and asked me quite a few questions and all I could say was, “I just don’t feel well at all.”
Col. Reed, of the 424th Regiment was on a stretcher, next to me for several days.
It wasn’t too many hours before I had need for a bed-pan and that was the beginning of the G.I. - - - - - you know what! At home on the farm it was called the back door trots.
The Army Dr. asked me to count the number of times that I had need for that pan however, when I passed the thirty count I lost the tally.
There was an Army Phraseology for the ailment that possessed my body but I have forgotten what it was.
The Army didn’t issue Purple Hearts for whatever it was either but if they did, I would have one with several Oak Leaf Clusters
Finally, when the Army sent me to a convalescent hospital, I must have set a record for making a mad dash for the latrine (mens’ room for those who don’t know army terminology) as I zoomed by others who were going to the same place
Floyd
424thRegiment
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