WWII Rations and Mess Kits

SC130830 - First Army Maneuvers in the Carolinas…Staff Sgt. Ed Nikens passes the O.K. on a delicious pot of steaming hot beef stew, as hungry soldiers of the 24th Infantry wait outside. Kitchen personnel are (L to R): Pvt. Jessie Rush, of Columbus, Missouri; Cpl. Harold Bussey, of Atlanta, Ga.; Staff Sgt. Ed Nikens, of Kilmock, Va.; and Pvt. Homer Jones, of Opelika, Alabama. Nov. 11, 1941.

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SC130053 - First Army Maneuvers in the Carolinas…These Negro children are eating Thanksgiving dinner with VI Army Corps in the field. November 23, 1941.

 

You already posted a picture of the 3 in 1 used by the UK on page three of this thread, also the same picture of the British 3 in 1 "tin opener" can also be seen here:

Ration Packs from WW2

I think it looks kind of more versatile in that it not only has the P-38 style can opener, and bottle cap opener, it also has the little "spoon" as a handle.

Since the Soviets were getting so much food, canned and such from America I would assume they also received the P-38/51s. Don't have a clue about the Axis members though.

 

Guess what I found here?

Japanese field equipment from WW2

 

I could have sworn I saw these German field ranges and cooking equipment when I looked at this thread before, but maybe I'm crossing-over in my mind with another thread somewhere else as I can't find them here. If these are duplicates, please delete the post.

The rolling field kitchen

Field bakerySmall

field range mounted in truck

Large field range

 

You are right!! LOL. Damn my old age LOL.

 

The German horse drawn one I think has. But not the others. I think I posted some of the German horse drawn one in the German High tech thread.

 

More Germans cooking. Nothing like a camp out LOL.

 

Another soldier doing some personal cooking.

 

I know I posted this in another thread. Thought I would post it here too LOL. Eating rations in your underwear LOL.

 

[SIZE=-1]An army field kitchen making loaves of "maneuver bread". These kitchens made hundreds and hundreds of loaves of this bread each day for the units participating in the Louisiana Maneuvers. Photo Credit: Rickey Robertson Collection[/SIZE]

 

Another German field kitchen

 

"Despite the harsh conditions, the men of the 99th were looking forward to Thanksgiving because the word had gone out that they would enjoy a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with turkey and all the trimmings.
"It wouldn't have been so bad, weather permitting," Netter said. "I can still see it: We had ponchos on over our heavy Army coats to try to keep warm. We slung our rifles over our shoulders, muzzle down to keep the rain out.
"We were holding our coffee cups in one hand and mess kits in the other, and the cooks just slopped the food in there. It was boiled turkey, dressing, green beans, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, plus pudding, all mixed together."
The men ate standing up under the dripping fir trees, rain dripping from their helmets into their mess kits and Thanksgiving dinner.
"The more you ate, the more you had because of the rain," Netter said. "It wasn't too tasty, I tell you."

Southwest Florida vet shares WWII memories of holiday in Ardennes | news-press.com | The News-Press

 

yuck

 

disgusting stuff

 

"We had taken over a large German warehouse as our HQ. When we arrived, it was obvious that the Germans had used this building to store kitchen supplies. There were many rooms so almost everyone had a private room with a wood heating stove for heat and cooking. We found in this warehouse a supply of tea kettles. Someone noticed that one of the sergeants would fill his tea kettle several times a day. One day, one of the guys followed the sergeant to see where he was going with his empty tea kettle to see why he was getting filled so often. The Sergeant descended from the 4th floor to the basement of the warehouse. To the surprise of the man following him, the sergeant had discovered a wine cellar containing eight huge hogs-heads of Rhine wine! Each one of the hogs-heads contained over 6,000 gallons of wine. Each of the containers of wine had a date, with the oldest vintage being 1936. Without telling the sergeant, the guy tailing him went back and told his buddies what he found. The word about the wine rapidly spread throughout C Battery and soon many of the guys were taking tea kettles down to the cellar. The preferred vintage was the oldest wine. I can tell you from personal experience that it was a good wine and it made our stay in the warehouse much more enjoyable. In a matter of days after everyone had discovered the wine, the container of the 1936 vintage was depleted. After we had been in Oppenheim about three weeks, we received word that C Battery would be deployed to Wurzberg, Germany. This presented a dilemma for the troops in the warehouse because there was so much wine still left in the basement. We decided to fill all of the water cans on the trucks with Rhine wine. This just about emptied the hogs-head with the 1937 vintage of wine. When the convoy left in the morning, we had no water, so when we stopped for lunch we had another dilemma ? there was no water for cleaning our mess kits. The cooks had to fill the 30-gallon immersion heaters we used to clean mess kits with wine, so the mess kits were cleaned with boiling wine instead of water. As one of the members of the medical staff, I believed that this was even better then water for cleaning since the alcohol would further sterilize the mess kit. Unfortunately, we never stayed in a place with a wine cellar for the rest of our tour, so we had to go back to using water for clean-up after meals.
Note: by Robert J. King"

WWII Memories :: The Patriot Files :: Dedicated to the preservation of military history

 

kind of a greedy guy not telling any one else