What food did the troops eat in world war 2?

Answer 1

I can only answer as to US troops. General George Marshall, who took over as Chief of Staff (Commanding General) of the US Army in September 1939, two years before Pearl Harbor and two days after the Nazi tanks rolled into Poland, agreed with Napoleon Bonaparte that an army marches on its stomach. Marshall had been a brilliant staff officer during WWI, and he meant to make certain that plans were in place to make certain that his troops would get something to eat in this war. This was something American troops had never been able to count on before.

Troops in the field got C Rations, D Rations or K Rations. This was when they were on the line and setting up a mess hall was impossible and getting hot food up to them also difficult if if not impossible. D and K were survival rations, but the C Ration was meant to be a meal in a box. The food was in cans, with Army green labels, and came in a little cardboard box. The labels often fell off, making what you were getting a mystery. In each box was a tiny little can opener, not like one you've ever seen, but you could eventually get a can open with it. There were a dozen or so different meals in the boxes. Only about two of them were thought to be any good, ham and eggs (in a can) and corned beef hash. All of them became monotonous after only a short time. They were not popular. Some had powdered lemonade ("battery acid") and others had powdered Hot Chocolate, which was a rare treat. The cardboard box could be used to make a little fire to heat up the main can, unless that would draw enemy attention. There were "toiletries" in each box - cigarettes (a flat four cigarette box pack in green), a book of matches with a green cover, and a flat pack of white toilet paper in a green wrapper, about enough for one day's business. They were thought to be heavy, the round cans inconvenient (but flat cans, like sardine cans, could not be made in sufficient numbers) and generally unpalatable.

Lieutenant George Wilson commanded an infantry company in the 4th Infantry Division for eight or nine months, during which time he lived mainly on these issue rations. Finally wounded badly enough to be evacuated, first he had to put up with the snotty superciliousness of WWII Army doctors, who openly expressed disbelief that he had been at the front as long as he said he had. WWII Army doctors were frequently complete jerks. And he couldn't keep down any food. They finally decided that his subsistence for such a lengthy time on the field rations had destroyed his digestion, and he had to be started with baby food for a few weeks, until his system could handle something more substantial. I believe it was Wilson, in his excellent memoir "If You Survive" who wrote of a man in his unit they called "The Chowhound", who, while he might not have been really enthusiastic over the C Rations, at least meant not to do without. Lots of the WWII guys had been raised poor in the Great Depression, and knew what real hunger is. This guy would carry half a dozen or more of the bulky boxes with him at all times, which naturally slowed his movements in combat, which of course can be fatal. In a town, crossing a street under fire, he dropped one of his boxes, and foolishly stopped and bent down to pick it up, and died, for a crappy box of survival food.

German troops were also issued canned rations, and occasionally American troops captured some of these. They had a really excellent beef in gravy, and any American troops lucky enough to come into possession of any of this were happy men indeed.

Spam made a name for itself in WWII, and it was not a good name. It was a staple, a monotonous, never-ending staple, in mess halls around the globe. Oddly, in Hawaii, the Hawaiian people were able to get hold of some Spam and they loved it, and still do to this day. Spam cuisine is very popular in the Islands.

"The Good War" is a collection of WWII oral histories by Studs Terkel, transcribed into an excellent book. Included is the war experience of a man whose name escapes me. This guy had managed to buy up about three factory buildings, just as a speculative investment, which were sitting empty and idle because of the Depression. Then the war came, and the Army came looking for him. They offered, insisted even, on setting him up in business. They gave him a choice of producing either frozen or dehydrated food. As he said, he chose the wrong one, and went into producing dessicated (dehydrated, just add water) food to be sent to the troops overseas. The troops called this stuff "desecrated" food. After years living in hellholes on powdered scrambled eggs, few men would tolerate any such product in their postwar household. Meanwhile, Clarence Birdseye had been given the same choice, and he chose well, going into the frozen food, and made a huge fortune after the war with heat and eat products which delighted housewives.

The morale of any military unit is directly related to the quality and amount of food the men are fed. The novel "From Here to Eternity", about the immediate prewar time in Hawaii, has as one of its main characters a mess sergeant, who was an important, vital personage to the good functioning of his unit. Each company had a mobile kitchen, and if possible the mess sergeant made hot food and got it up to the men. It might no be too hot by the time it got there, but it was usually welcome in preference to the canned rations.

Navy ships also had reputations among sailors for how well they fed the men. Bigger ships had bigger galleys (kitchens) and more storage space, coolers and freezers, and the good food held out longer after they left port. They could even make ice cream, which was a powerful item in trade with crews of smaller ships, or for souvenirs from ground troops who had collected these in combat. Ships that carried the troops to make amphibious landing attacks on enemy shores usually gave the guys a good "last meal" for breakfast before they hit the beach, often steak and eggs. One Marine, writing long after the war, was still angry over his experience. The men got no good breakfast, and were soon ashore and dying. Something vital had been forgotten aboard the ship, and he was sent back after it, and found the crew sitting down to eat the steak and eggs they had hidden from the troops and kept for themselves. Its amazing he did not open fire. I had an uncle who was a crewman on one of these troops landing amphibious vessels, an LSM (Landing Ship Medium). He was at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. His mother, my grandmother, told how just about the first thing he did when he got home was to go to the store and get a head of lettuce and some salt, and sit down and eat the salted lettuce. It had been a long time since he had access to fresh vegetables.

See Related Link below.