The foundation of morale, food was also the primary determinant of how far troops could march, how fast they could act, how quickly they could recover, and how well they could maintain discipline. The U.S. Quartermaster Corps categorized rations as “Class I,” ahead of fuel, clothing, ammunition, and everything else. In 1940 dollars Lend-Lease sent $5 billion in aircraft and $5.1 billion in food.29
Rations were also a direct reflection of a country’s ability to wage war. If a link in the food chain broke—such as loss of farmland, surrender of rail lines, or failure of organization—it meant that military and civilian populations did not eat. With their shipping lanes cut, Japanese soldiers stationed on GUADAICANAL began to call it “Starvation Island.” Conversely, Allied advances on Germany from both the east and west stalled in late 1944 because they outran their supply lines. German soldiers lost ground in the east about the same time their rations began to perceptibly decrease.
On average, Chinese and Japanese troops were among the poorest fed, and Americans were by far the best supplied. Yet persons aboard ships always had to carefully ration goods, and field units at any moment could find themselves vainly searching for mobile kitchens. Many veterans recalled days when there was nothing to eat, leaving every moment occupied with thoughts of food.
Listed below are the fodders of fighting men, particularly concerning ground troops. Items are ranked by the quantity generally consumed.
1. WATER
A Japanese military training manual stated it bluntly: “When the water is gone it is the end of everything.” A soldier could (and many did) survive days without food, but as the booklet added, “Water is your savior.”30
Men stationed in North Africa or the South Pacific were extremely susceptible to abrupt dehydration, resulting in cramps, headaches, fatigue, sometimes delirium, and sunstroke. In jungle operations, the Japanese calculated that a man required nearly two gallons per day (and a horse could need up to fifteen gallons).
In most regions, water was available. But the problem was fresh water. Oceangoing vessels were in transit for weeks at a time, requiring sailors and passengers to persist on two glasses a day. Snowbound troops at least had a ready supply, provided a fire could be made. In warmer weather, sources near campsites usually contained high concentrations of bacteria, made worse by bathing and the lavatory habits of animals as well as men. Water in combat areas was generally unusable due to spilled fuel and rotting corpses.
A Chinese laborer uses a light bulb as a drinking glass
Purification came through filtering and boiling. There was also the use of creosote pills or chloride of lime, which permeated every drop with an acrid taste. To make chemically treated sources palatable, Europeans often carried “fizz tablets” (vitamin-enriched bicarbonate flavor capsules). Americans received lemon-flavored powders in their rations, which the men universally hated, until they tried it with hard alcohol.31
Only a few wells existed on the volcanic ash island of Iwo Jima. All stank of sulfur, yet the Japanese depended on them for survival. Some of the last Imperial assaults made in the battle were failed attempts to retake two wells lost early to U.S. Marines.
2. BREAD AND RICE
G.I. Joe had white. Ivan and Jerry ate rye. Tommy had his royal wheat. More than half the Japanese diet was based on rice. As the eternal staple, grain fueled the armies of the world, and most countries aimed to provide two pounds of grain per soldier per day.32
Installations and cities usually provided numerous bakeries, but frontline activities normally required mobile kitchens. In Europe, Americans adopted the British field kitchen. If the weather was cooperative and supplies adequate, a single German field bakery with a few dough mixers and ovens could produce enough to feed ten thousand men a day.33
When fresh loaves were unavailable, the aptly named hardtack became a necessity. Weighing a few ounces each, biscuits, crackers, and blocks appeared in C-and K-rations, tins, plastic, paper, or crates. Usually old and stale, they hurt the jaw and clogged the stomach. Spreads were minimal. Americans sometimes received margarine, which tended to be more like a petroleum by-product. Europeans had jams and marmalades when they were lucky, animal lard (a.k.a. drippings) otherwise, but they frequently had nothing except the dry, coarse brick itself.
By 1944, U.S. forces stationed in the European theater consumed eight hundred thousand pounds of bread every day.
3. SOUP AND STEW
As roasting or grilling took too long to feed thousands at a time, mobile kitchens were designed primarily for boiling. There were porridges of oats, barley, or corn. Russians ate “Kascha” mush and pickled beat borscht. When preserved or frozen beef could be found, the English had Irish stew. The Japanese drank something that loosely translated as “weed soup.” Nearly every army fried broth cubes as a substitute when meat or vegetables went missing in action.34
Hot meals in wintertime were key to maintaining troop morale.
The universal stereotype of the surly, cold, and indifferent army cook is based largely in fact. The first to hear the soldiers’ complaints and the last to control the supply chain, cooks and mess sergeants were often driven to exhaustion while feeding the conveyer belt of impatient mouths. Either making too little or too much food, most started work well before sunup and finished long after sundown. Some combat soldiers thought highly of their commissary chefs, especially the ones who would brave enemy fire to feed the men. Overall, the hardest-worked and least-liked men in the unit were saddled with as much responsibility as officers, but with none of the perks.
During winter on the eastern front, soldiers on both sides recalled seeing bowls of boiling soup freeze solid within two minutes.
4. CANNED MEAT
Watertight, dividable, and easily shipped and stored, canned meats were a modern convenience for commissary officers. Distributed when operations were in motion, the tins had a varied reputation among the grunts. Unlike square ration packages with dried food, cans were awkward and heavy to carry. If served hot, the contents were tolerable. Taken cold, all had the taste and texture of chunky sludge.
Until 1945 C-ration meals (twelve-ounce cans) embodied monotony. There were meat and beans, meat and veggie hash, or meat stew. Germans muscled down their “iron ration” of hardtack and canned pork. Troops of all nationalities disliked corned beef or “bully beef.” The runny brown botch of gravy and gristle earned the nicknames “dog food” and “kennel rations.”
So overrun with Spam during their stay in England, U.S. servicemen referred to the country as Spamland. But many Yanks tolerated the meatlike loaf in lieu of canned British alternatives such as bacon and liver, fish and egg, or meat and kidney pudding.35
Canned fish was prominent in non-American diets. Commonwealth troops had salmon, mackerel, herring, and sardines. The Japanese consumed large amounts of tinned sea eel. Pushing into the Third Reich, hungry American soldiers captured a cache of German canned fish that was oddly gray and flavorless.36
Sometimes the troops had no idea what they were consuming. Rain-soaked, sunbaked, and oft-handled cans frequently lost their labeling. Others had ambiguous markings like MV for “meat and vegetables.” Unfortunately, opening the containers did not always solve the mystery.
Afrika Korps troops ate cans of meat stamped “AM.” German troops claimed it meant “Alter Mann” for “old man.” Italian infantry surmised the initials stood for “Asino Morte” for “dead monkey.”
5. VEGETABLES
Soldiers received fewer fresh vegetables than they did in peacetime. Soybeans and bean paste were staples for many Japanese Imperial soldiers, eaten less often but providing far more nutrition than rice. Short on meat, Soviets and Eastern Europeans lived on beets, turnips, cucumbers, and cabbage. While Americans consumed large quantities of corn, Germans were less inclined, as they traditionally viewed maize as pig food.37
The exception was potatoes, sweet and white in the East, every other variety in the West. For most armies, spud consumption outweighed all other veggie intake combined. In search of a little variety, some stationary units were able to grow their own crops. Allies camped in Britain sowed thousands of acres of peas, carrots, and onions.38
The Japanese government encouraged its armies to be “self-sufficient” in their respective theaters, buying or taking what they needed from surrounding areas. The order was easy to follow on the Asian mainland, as Imperial troops held the most productive regions. Life on the Pacific islands was a different matter. The Japanese planted crops just to survive, but volcanic soils and rocky terrains made for poor yields. Shortages and malnutrition plagued garrisons consistently in these areas.39
Airmen everywhere learned quickly to avoid most vegetables as well as any food that caused gas. Not a serious problem back at the base, intestinal gas expanded at altitude in nonpressurized aircraft, causing great pain and occasionally serious internal damage.
6. TEA AND COFFEE
A national right among Commonwealth soldiers, Russians, and the Japanese, tea was also the most favored weapon against unsavory water. It came in nags, bulk, cakes, and slabs. The British developed palm-sized “tea tablets” called Service Blend Compressed, which usually sported a bit of a rotted scent and savor. Russians and Chinese usually received miniscule amounts in loose, coarse form. Many Commonwealth charges had the pleasure of getting sugar and dried milk with their ration, but fresh milk was a rarity throughout the war. Sweetened condensed milk was as good as gold, particularly in the China-Burma-India theater.
No nationality downed coffee like the Americans, who continually requisitioned their quartermasters for more. Airmen and sailors had a greater take, while ground troops on the move had to settle for condensed coffee in the C-and K-rations. When torn up and burned, the wax and paper boxes of K-rations usually gave off enough heat to warm a cup or two of joe.
For fresh-ground java, fuel supplies had to be taken into consideration. Mobile coffee production usually required coal-powered roasters and gasor diesel-driven grinders.
7. FRESH MEAT
When it was on the menu, things were either going very well or very poorly. American troops on the island fortress of Britain sometimes enjoyed a slice of beef and tried to develop a taste for mutton. Most airmen regularly received hot meals with servings of fowl or red meat. This luxury was partly due to the relative permanence and security of air bases and partly because of their line of work, which required good food and plentiful rest to operate their extremely complicated and expensive machinery. Line troops also had the occasional pleasure of dining on something that wasn’t canned, pickled, smoked, salted, frozen, or puréed, usually because of a respite in the fighting and open supply lines.
Then there were times when necessity was the mother of ingestion. Poisonous snakes were standard fare to a few jungle-bound troops. Japanese enlisted were instructed to eat the snake liver raw for its nutrients. On several fronts, rats and dogs made their way to the dinner table. When in hurried attack or retreat, cooking was not always an option. Several American units in the Battle of the Bulge recalled catching farm chickens and eating them freshly plucked. One lieutenant lost in Burma recalled surviving a month solely on bamboo, parsley, and lizards. Lt. Gen. Jonathan Wainwright, in command of the courageous defense of the Bataan Peninsula in the spring of 1942, ordered his starving men to slaughter indigenous water buffalo, later their own horses, and finally their army mules. Horses, being a major form of transportation on the eastern front, also became a frequent part of diets.40
In his failed invasion of India, Japan’s Gen. Mutaguchi Renya figured he could feed his troops by bringing along goats, cattle, and water buffalo. After most of his “rolling stock” died or disappeared along the treacherous march, his men were reduced to eating grass and monkeys.
8. SWEETS
Issued for their high-caloric content and mild stimulant qualities, sugar-laden foods appeared frequently in the hands of Westerners. Conversely, loss of sugar beet and sugar cane crops greatly reduced confectionary opportunities in the East.
Chocolate candies and drinks, chewing gum, and sugar cubes were most common in the European theater. Germans enjoyed brief periods of plentiful chocolate, until they ventured farther east and the confection disappeared from view. A standard in the American kit was the D-ration, a single bitter candy bar also known as the Logan Bar. Appropriately, American soldiers each carried a D-ration on D-day. To be eaten when nothing else was available, the carbo-loaded snack usually consisted of oatmeal, cocoa, sugar, and dried milk. Chalky and concentrated, it was hard to chew and even tougher to pass.41
Nothing brought out fresh food like the liberation of small villages and towns.
Dairy-based treats did not fare well in the tropics. Instead, fruit bars, cereal bars, and hard candy were standards among the Allies. Australian rations contained appropriately named “musk lozenges,” odiferous little bonbons with a sweet, syrupy taste. Initially most candies were generic in label and flavor, but by 1943 the Allies were seeing and eating a greater number of major brands. By the end of the war, the Japanese rarely ate processed sugar. More than any other commodity, sugar vanished from Japanese warehouses and homes. From Pearl Harbor to the fall of Okinawa, imports fell 80 percent and production essentially stopped.42
By 1944, Lend-Lease was feeding the Soviet war machine large quantities of K-rations filled with brand-name candy, providing many Communists with their first and last taste of Hershey, Pennsylvania.
9. ALCOHOL
Just a decade out of Prohibition, U.S. conscripts were surprised by the amount and variety of spirited beverages overseas. They tried to develop a taste for hearty Irish and English stouts, preferring the ales, and choked on whiskeys when they could get some. American naval personnel, forbidden from having drink on board, were comparatively grateful for whatever was available on land.
The march through Northern Europe provided Americans with a veritable tour of spirits. Accepted from grateful locals, “found” in cellars, or slammed in off-duty escapades, G.I.’s had cider in NORMANDY, champagne in Champagne, beer in Holland, and schnapps in Germany.43
For the most part, the soldiers were not after the taste. Alcohol quenched a fierce thirst, especially in areas where clean water could not be found. More often, Americans were drinking for the same reasons as their brothers in arms. Ever since the Great War, the British knew the benefit of a rum ration in times of combat. The French and Italians, accustomed to wine since childhood, switched to harder drinks when called for. A German soldier marching through Belgium in 1940 admitted, “Only through alcohol, nicotine, and that never-ending, ear-deafening raging and roaring of the guns are you still able to remain upright.”44
Two U.S. sergeants display their affection for beer.
In lieu of physical escape, combatants often turned to drink in search of calm, or courage, or to momentarily feel nothing. Drunkenness skyrocketed among Soviet soldiers before they headed into combat. Consumption on the frozen steppes sometimes reached a quart of vodka a day. German troops disillusioned by the war referred to alcohol as Wutmilch, meaning the “milk of fury.” Wounded and dying Japanese on Saipan slammed lethal levels of sake then hobbled away in the largest banzai attack of the war. One soldier said of drink, “It is the easiest way to make heroes.”45
When they could not find alcohol, the troops tried to make it, or at least something with a similar effect. Members of a U.S. infantry unit in Germany attempted to get a buzz by mixing grapefruit juice with antifreeze. Soviet soldiers in Stalingrad filtered antifreeze through gas mask filaments then drank it straight. Many went blind.
10. FRUIT
A lack of refrigerated ships, boxcars, and trucks made fresh fruit impractical for field operations. Most of the time, supplies had to be requisitioned, bought, or taken from nearby growers. Marchers ate melons in Sicily, apples in Germany, grapes in France, and dates in Greece, but little of it seemed to fill stomachs. Soldiers and sailors in the tropics gathered pineapples and coconuts for the half-pint of juice inside.46
For the leaner months, there were small amounts of preserved fruit. Russians ate dried apricots and raspberries. The Japanese had salted plums. The British supplemented with canned fruit puddings or fruit salads. Americans hesitantly consumed a fair amount of prunes, also known as “Army strawberries.”47
Though servicemen could live without the bland flavors of dried and salted fruits, they could not live well without the vitamins therein. Absences of B and C were of high concern to medical personnel. Recent inventions of vitamin pills were of marginal help to the worst cases of deficiency, which tended to fall easy prey to the diseases of dysentery and scurvy.48
Men stationed in the lush tropics were warned not to forage too readily from the trees. Berries and fruits that were especially colorful, sweet, decorative, low to the ground, or bright tended to be extremely poisonous.