WWII Rations and Mess Kits

2,000 lbs of veal?!

 

As opposed to 10,000 of just regular beef. Im surprised there is not a listing for chicken.

 

Some more info on Italian rations,

Weekly ration

Flour for baking (70% to 97% of wheat's flour and 30% to 97% of pure rye flour)

Meat 3.330 grs
Canned fish 1.450 grs
Pasta 200 grs
Oil or lard 1.350 grs
Canned tomato concentrate 105 grs
Potatoes 1.250 grs
Coffee 35 grs
Surrogate coffee 42 grs
Sugar 210 grs
Pepper 0,035 grs
Salt 168 grs
Cigarettes 30

Italian field rations - Page 2 - Wehrmacht-Awards.com Militaria Forums

 

Ok I found a little blurb on what was carried on German submarines. This is from the surrender of U-249,

"The boarding party had been supplied with the normal Navy rations - two loaves of bread, two tins of corned beef and a bottle of rum.

"The crew invited the party to share their food."
Instead of RN rations, the boarders enjoyed sausages from Poland, French cheese, Italian olives and German bread. "The acorn coffee was a disaster - or was it the all-pervading smell of diesel fumes."

World War II Commemorations: 1945 - 2005

 

LOL. A good recipe for SOS LOL,

Recipe to serve 60 men.

Ingredients
15 pounds (6.8kg) chipped beef
1 pound of (450g) fat, butter preferred
1¼ (560g) lbs of flour
2 12-oz cans of evaporated milk
1 bunch parsley
¼ (110g) oz pepper
6 quarts (6l) beef stock

Directions
Brown the flour in the melted fat.
Dissolve the milk in the beef stock, and then add that to the pot.
Stir this together slowly to prevent lumping, and then add the beef.
Cook for a few minutes, add the parsley, and serve over toast.

 

A short question, did the German army had an alchohol ration and how was alchohol distributed? Before the Battle of the Bulge all German units that was to take place in the offensive issued each soldier a hot meal and a bottle of schnapps. Was it something they did for just one special occassion or is there actually official papers somewhere decreeing the supply of alchohol?

 

You're right, how would we manage today?

 

"1 egg per week "??? I don't know if I could manage on that! LOL

 

Im going to look around and see what I can find.

 

I found this little bit. But still looking. So it looks like not everyone got schnapps LOL


"But even more amazing was the fact that the battalion was composed mostly of teenagers from the Flemish Hitler Youth who had volunteered for service in the Waffen-SS after their country had been overrun by the Allies. If there was one drawback to service in this battalion it was that the regimental quartermaster stubbornly saw that the young troopers received a special ration of Schokolade and Bonbons instead of the schnapps and cigarettes passed out to the older soldiers! "

The European Volunteer Movement in World War II

 

Still nothing so far But I did find this,

Alcohol consumption was encouraged

Alcohol, the people's drug, was also popular in the Wehrmacht. Referring to alcohol, Walter Kittel, a general in the medical corps, wrote that "only a fanatic would refuse to give a soldier something that can help him relax and enjoy life after he has faced the horrors of battle, or would reprimand him for enjoying a friendly drink or two with his comrades." Officers would distribute alcohol to their troops as a reward, and schnapps was routinely sold in military commissaries, a policy that also had the happy side effect of returning soldiers' pay to the military.

"The military command turned a blind eye to alcohol consumption, as long as it didn't lead to public drunkenness among the troops," says Freiburg historian Peter Steinkamp, an expert on drug abuse in the Wehrmacht.

But in July 1940, after France was defeated, Hitler issued the following order: "I expect that members of the Wehrmacht who allow themselves to be tempted to engage in criminal acts as a result of alcohol abuse will be severely punished." Serious offenders could even expect "a humiliating death."

But the temptations of liquor were apparently more powerful that the Fuehrer's threats. Only a year later, the commander-in-chief of the German military, General Walther von Brauchitsch, concluded that his troops were committing "the most serious infractions" of morality and discipline, and that the culprit was "alcohol abuse." Among the adverse effects of alcohol abuse he cited were fights, accidents, mistreatment of subordinates, violence against superior officers and "crimes involving unnatural sexual acts." The general believed that alcohol was jeopardizing "discipline within the military."
According to an internal statistic compiled by the chief of the medical corps, 705 military deaths between September 1939 and April 1944 could be linked directly to alcohol. The unofficial figure was probably much higher, because traffic accidents, accidents involving weapons and suicides were frequently caused by alcohol use. Medical officers were instructed to admit alcoholics and drug addicts to treatment facilities. According to an order issued by the medical service, this solution had "the advantage that it could be extended indefinitely." Once incarcerated in these facilities, addicts were evaluated under the provisions of the "Law for Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases," and could even be subjected to forced sterilization and euthanasia.
Drugs were also a problem on the home front, but the Nazis tried harder to control their abuse.
Executing a bootlegger

The number of cases in which soldiers became blind or even died after consuming methyl alcohol began to increase. From 1939 on, the University of Berlin 's Institute of Forensic Medicine consistently listed methyl alcohol as the leading factor in deaths resulting from the inadvertent ingestion of poisons.

The execution of a 36-year-old officer in Norway in the fall of 1942 was intended to set an example. The officer, who was a driver, had sold five liters of methyl alcohol, which he claimed was 98 percent alcohol and could be used to produce liquor, to an infantry regiment's anti-tank defense unit. Several soldiers fell ill, and two died. The man, deemed an "enemy of the people," was executed by a firing squad. According to the daily order issued on October 2, 1942 , "the punishment shall be announced to the troops and auxiliary units, and it shall be used as a tool for repeated and insistent admonishment."

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/.

 

Thanks. This does remind me to participate the thread on drugs. =)

 

Japanese Navy use of alcohol.

"At least the food was good. Menus changed daily. Eighty cooks worked in the main galleys deep in number 4 deck. Meals were brought up to the mess deck in large stainless steel canteens. The crews ate ample portions of frozen fish, fried beefsteak unobtainable ashore, a variety of vegetables, pickles, and of course plenty of glutinous Japanese rice. The three officers' messes had their own cooks and the pick of the food supplies.

Japanese warships were far from dry. Ratings could draw a ration of rice wine with their dinner, or a bottle of beer ... There were no restrictions on the officers, who frequently caroused when in port. At sea, however, they were more abstemious ...

A steward served Scotch in cut glasses. The whiskey and the glasses were part of the leftover loot from Singapore. The liquor stocks of the captured fortress were so vast that the Japanese Navy was still drinking [them] more than three years after the British surrender. Yamato carried so much liquor, in fact, that her supply staff joked that the fish would be drunk for miles around, if ever she was to sink.

Executive officer Nomura was determined to foil the fish. His final orders of the day were for a monumental party. It might be the last one most of them would ever have. Cooks had already been instructed to break out the best rations for a symbolic last supper ...

The cooks had outdone themselves. Special dishes appeared, suitable for the eve of battle. There was sekihan, made of red bean paste, and okashiratsuki, a kind of sea bream made complete with the head of the fish. And more, lashings more, of the warm rice wine that brought a flush to their faces ..."

A Glorious Way to Die (Newmarket Press, 1981), pages 79, 123, and 125

Axis History Forum • View topic - Food rations in the Japanese forces

 

That's why you look like a damn fat cholesterol drenched Confederate soldier.

 

Hah!! Shows what you know!!! Im way thinner now !!! And besides Im NOT A CONFEDERATE in that the picture!!! LOL Looking at the amount of food and types in all the listings above I really wonder how some people would manage. IIRC someone as an school project or experiment actually used the same types of rationed foods to see what it was like to have to live on that diet during the war.

 

"The lady doth protest too much."

 

. BAACCCKKKK to the original subject at hand LOL

"Submarine crews, as well as the rest of the seagoing navy, tended to have preferential treatment with respect to food and cigarettes. At sea the submariners had a diet of boiled white rice, pickled vegetables, dried seaweed, eggs, beef, pork, various fish, and usually for breakfast, miso-shiro, a vegetable soup. Refrigeration was severely limited, and fresh meat, fish, and vegetables would be exhausted in about a week, after which canned food was the staple. There was little coffee but plenty of tea. Officers and men generally ate the same food, their daily submarine ration amounting to some 3,300 calories, quite high for wartime Japan. Sake and beer were available to submarine crews ashore, while at sea a commanding officer could issue alcohol under special conditions. But drunkenness ashore or afloat was not tolerated.

Life in the cramped, un-air-conditioned submarines was difficult. On long deployments bags of rice and canned food filled every available space, and just moving through the submarine was a difficult task. The newer boats had cooling systems; the older craft were always very humid. Rats were common on board."

Submarines of the Imperial Japanese Navy (Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1986)

 

With a diet like that I hope they slept with their windows open or else!