WWII Rations and Mess Kits

Very interesting revelation about your foodstuffs, thanks Mr. Marlowe

 

Gentelmen:

Market - Garden officially ended 26 September,1944. But we stayed with British 2nd Army until the Middle of November. we were moved in serial to Mourmelon le Grande. At the close of Market- Garden our new management came fro the US XVII Airborne Corp with General Matthew Ridgeway in Command. When we moved to Moremelon we remained under his command. We went to Belgium under XVIII command and were transferred to the VII Corp for the Defense of Bastogne.

Just for the Record.
As Ever,

Walter L. Marlowe
( Airborne all the Way)

 

I found this to be a facinating subject. Is there any chance that this thread could be put into the sticky column, so that everyone new to this forum site could easily read it?

 

Not easy to read lol, 16 pages, but interesting non the less. Back to the question about mess kits I still use the standard British rectangular set which are of a good size, easy to clean, work well on a stove or open fire. I find the US sets just not practical and the East German sets you can get these days are an awkward shape to use and rest on some stoves. I combine my bushcraft hobby with my stove collecting hobby and have several stoves of the type used in WW2.

At the outbreak of the war we could still import stoves from Sweden made by companies such as Primus but this route dried up and we made our own stoves, several makers in and around the Birmingham UK area produced paraffin/kerosene pressure stoves for the army. The American army developed their own stoves which used white gas/gasoline as in the 'Foxhole' stove and were made by various companies such as Coleman and Rogers to the same standard design. I'll post some pictures if there is any interest.

On the topic of food, my local B&M store recently had tins/cans of pork sausages in lard, which for those of a certain age will be remembered from post WW2 compo ration packs; they taste better than they sound and are made by Westlers.

 

Army rations packs have been revised upon the survey of the army people and so now they all will get food with all the nutrients and fat with the taste which they will love. There have been added nutrition bar it can be used when you are hungry on the duty.

 

World War Two Ration Technologies Index Page

 

Just wanted to add some to that...

Eiserne Ration - Iron Ration
Halbeiserne Ration - Half Iron Ration

The Iron Ration describes a minimal survival portion of food. Typically soldiers were equipped with two of them and were only allowed to use it upon order. Half Iron Ration is simply one iron ration cut in half in situation of even less supplies.

Iron ration is still a common term in German language for a minimal portion of something (usually food) among many terms coming form WWI and WWII.

 

In terms of mess kit, all you need is a US canteen cup and a German spork. Everything else is unnessacery weight and bulk.

 

All these pages, and none of these? Time to rectify that situation.

 

Speaking for C Rations...when I was stationed in Germany in the '60's, we would have these older rations dated in the mid '40's
They were good and there was a pack of old dry cigarettes in every case of 12.

 

HI I FOUND A CANTEEN WHICH IS STILL IN ITS GREEN HOLDER AND THIS IS ON IT
U.S.-1918-T.J.W.B.M.CO. BESIDES MY DAD WORKING THE STEEL MILL HE ALSO HAD A TRASH TRUCK AND HE USE TO SAY ONE MANS TRASH IS ANOTHER MANS TREASURE WHEN I FOUND THIS SITE BY PUTTING THAT INFO SOMEONE WAS TRYING TO COLLECT THEM NOW ONCE I SIGNED UP FOR THIS SITE I CAN NO LONGER LOCATE HIS POST I WAS JUST WONDERING IF I SHOULD KEEP IT OR THROW IT AWAY I DO KNOW THAT IT IS A PART OF OUR HISTORY AND THE LAST THING THAT I WOULD WANT TO DO IS DISHONOR SOMEONE THANK YOU FOR ANY HELP THAT YOU MAY GIVE TO ME..

 

Hello, you probably have a U.S. WWI canteen . Is it like this one?

It's not worth a fortune, but as you said it, it's part of history and rather than throw it away I'm sure a collcetor would be glad to save it.