Operational Rations in World War II

As a result of these developments, the Army entered World War II with two established special-purpose rations-Field Ration D and Field Ration C. Ration D was used throughout the war as the Army's emergency ration and as a supplement to other rations. The C ration went through an evolution which ultimately produced an outstanding ration for the purpose it was designed to meet-a daily food which the soldier could carry and use when he was cut off from regular food supply sources.

The use of these rations after 1941 revealed their inability to meet all the many feeding problems imposed by new combat conditions. Therefore, a succession of rations, individual food packets, and ration supplements was developed and came into use before the war's end. The haste attached to the initial wartime ration development indicated that the country was no better prepared to cope with the food problem in 1941 than with other problems of war supply. The early trial-and-error method was proof, too, that haste made waste. Nevertheless the food program ultimately evolved for the American soldier was firmly based on the premise-"that all troops . . . be fed the best food available in the best and most appetizing form within the realm of reasonable possibility particularly . . . troops in combat." For the citizen soldier, for the most part accustomed to good food in civilian life, "what do we eat" became as important, if not more so, than "when do we eat." In addition to providing an acceptable answer to this query, ration developers had to pay equal attention to military utilization, to stability and storage requirements, to nutritional values, to demands for shipping space, and to the necessity of going beyond commercial practices to protect packaged foods on the long journey from American factories to theaters of action. Add factors of warborn shortages of material and the continued necessity for providing adequate interim substitutes and the magnitude of the ration-development problem in World War II becomes evident.

Despite obstacles, many varied and excellent rations, packets, and supplements were developed and supplied to the World War II soldier. In volume, approximately one billion special rations, costing about 675 millions of dollars, were procured between 1941 and 1945. The list includes such individual rations as the lightweight K ration, the emergency D ration, and the food-for-a-day C ration. Need of rations in specific climates produced the mountain, jungle, and desert rations. Packets produced for subsistence requirements in flight were an aircrew lunch, a parachute-emergency packet, and an in-flight combat meal. At-sea survival called for lifeboat and liferaft rations and pointed to the desirability of all-purpose survival foods. Supplements were designed to augment other rations: namely, the aid-station and hospital beverage packs that provided beverages for casualties at advance medical posts, and the kitchen spice pack for use by mobile kitchens. At the end of the war, the assault packet, intended to provide a quick-energy snack before combat, was in production.

The D Ration

Specifications governing the composition of the D ration were only slightly changed during the entire life of the ration. The ingredients were chocolate,  sugar, dry milk, cacao fat, oat flour, and flavoring-a mixture providing 600 calories per bar. Some changes in packaging requirements were necessitated by material shortages and by suggestions for improvement. In 1944, when emphasis was given to use of the bar as a supplement to other rations, a alf-size or two-ounce bar was introduced to provide a smaller unit.

The D ration was procured in quantity almost from its inception. The 600,000 rations purchased in 1941 were followed by 117,800,000 rations in 1942. By then, the volume on hand was so great that the rations were stockpiled overseas and none procured in 1943. A final procurement of 52 million rations was made in 1944.

Misuse of the D ration as a combat food led to its unpopularity and replacement before the end of the war by the C and K rations. In 1945, it was classified as "limited-standard" and recommendations followed that the governing specification be cancelled.

Utilization of the oversea stockpile of D rations was of concern to The Quartermaster General early in 1945 when he requested that the Laboratory study the possibility of using excess D bars in some acceptable food product for Army or civilian feeding. The Laboratory asked candy manufacturers for recommendations regarding such utilization and also queried them on their ability to absorb some of the bars. Industry offered no suggestions and naturally was reluctant to take over the rations on hand. The oat flour in the chocolate and the cost of stripping the wrappers from the bars were understandable reasons for this reluctance. It was suggested that excess bars be unwrapped by prisoners-of-war, packed in containers, and
shipped to plants for reprocessing into a chocolate confection that could be used for emergency feeding of civilians in war areas.

A salient omission in the development of the ration had been the lack of a program to inform the user of the purpose of the bar. There was in consequence little effort to confine the D ration to its proper place as an emergency food. While it admirably met the requirements for an emergency pack as to weight and space, was nutritionally adequate, and had good storage and keeping qualities, it was not a popular item. Misuse of it added to this unpopularity. The D bar nevertheless had been the ration that led the way to the intensive research conducted in Army subsistence during the war.

Ration, Type C

The other Army ration available when the country entered World War II, Field Ration, Type C, as a ration of meat and bread components, had the prewar characteristics of the 1918 "reserve ration" but had a better balance than its predecessor, good keeping qualities, and sturdy packaging. Its disadvantages were that it was troublesome to carry and that its manufacture posed difficult production problems. These difficulties provided the incentive for the improvements which produced today's individual "combat" or C ration. The ultimate form in which this ration emerged from the war, however, came only as hostilities were ending and before wide distribution could be made.

The major problem of the C ration concerned its meat components. Procurement was at first of necessity confined to items which could be produced in volume, and variety in consequence was of secondary importance. Hence, the early waves of criticism from the field were aimed at the monotonous meat diet offered by the first C ration. Troops not only encountered repetitious meat-and-hash combinations but also met them on returning to central messes where they were served duplicates of these combinations in B rations. It was little wonder that there was much early denunciation of the C ration.

Despite constant effort, attempts to increase the component variety, and hence ration acceptance, were not easily or quickly successful. New or ubstitute items could be introduced only after productive ability had been coordinated with laboratory research. Early improvements embraced a better selection of confection items, inclusion of cigarettes in the B unit of the ration, and modifications required by wartime advances in packaging technology.

Until early 1944, separate specifications were used for the so-called B or bread unit of the ration and for related components. In June of that year, the component specifications were consolidated into one specification which abandoned the title "U.S. Army Field Ration C" and adopted the nomenclature "Ration, Type C, Assembly, Packaging and Packing." Under its terms the ration consisted of three cans of B units, three cans of M or meat units, and one accessory pack. Six combinations of components or menu arrangements were specified to provide variety to the ration. Six B units were listed, two each for breakfast, dinner, and supper. B unit components, varied in accordance with a grouping which would fit the meal, included biscuits, compressed and premixed cereal, candy-coated peanuts or raisins, soluble coffee, sugar, lemon- or orange-juice powder, hard candies, jam, cocoa beverage powder, and caramels. The accessory packet included nine "good-commercial-quality" cigarettes, halazone water-purification tablets, book of matches, toilet paper, chewing gum, and an opener for the meat cans. The varieties of canned meats were meat and beans; meat-and-vegetable stew; meat and spaghetti; ham, egg, and potato; meat and noodles; pork and rice; frankfurters and beans; pork and beans; ham and lima beans; and chicken and vegetables. The unpopular meat-and-vegetable hash and English-style stew-which were the first additions to the original three-were abandoned because of poor acceptance.

The final wartime version of the specification was published in April and amended in July 1945. 37 It contained still more improvements resulting from field tests and combat experiences. Hard candy and candy-coated peanuts and raisins were deleted from the B units because of poor keeping quality, and a fudge disc and cookie sandwich were substituted. Salt tablets to alleviate heat exhaustion were added to the accessory pack. The ultimate revision also substituted sugar tablets for the granulated type, increased the variety of beverage powders, and added a compressed cocoa disc to the list of B components. At the request of The Surgeon General, halazone tablets were deleted from the accessory pack. Beef stew was a new canned meat component. The accessory pack was divided into two packets, first named the "long" and the "short" pack and later, the "accessory pack" and the "cigarette pack." Gum, toilet paper, can opener, granulated salt, salt tablets, and wood spoons were included in the "long" pack. The cigarette pack consisted of three units of three or one unit of nine cigarettes, and matches.

Due to the natural lag between development and supply and the extensive stockpiling of "old" C rations, this "new" version was not procured in sufficient time to win in wartime the praise that later became attached to "Ration, Combat, C-2." The criticisms of monotony and unacceptability, though often made for reasons attributable to misuse and overuse rather than to ration content, held true as far as the World War II user of C rations was concerned.

The K Ration

The K ration was the Laboratory's answer to the demand for an individual, easy-to-carry ration that could be used in assault and combat operations. It was noted for compactness and superior packaging and was acknowledged as the ration that provided the greatest variety of nutritionally balanced components within the smallest space.

Although other related items appear in its ancestral background the actual prototype of the K ration was a pocket ration for paratroopers developed by the SR and DL at the request of the Air Force early in the war. Two original samples (one with pemmican biscuits, a peanut bar, raisins, and bouillon paste; the other with pemmican biscuits, a small D bar, a meat preparation, and beverage (powder) evolved into the one-package breakfast-dinner-supper combination used first by paratroopers. The three-meal combination contained such common units as pemmican biscuits and gum. In addition, the breakfast unit furnished malted milk tablets, canned veal loaf, soluble coffee, and sugar; the dinner package had dextrose tablets, canned ham spread, and bouillon cubes; and for the supper unit there were the D bar chocolate, sausage, lemon powder, ant sugar. The Army quickly noted the success of the new ration with the paratroops and in 1942 the item was adopted for all-service use as Field Ration, Type K. The instantaneous success of the ration with attendant popular publicity, was a source of amazement to the developers.

Success was not a deterrent to continued research. Many change were effected in the components and packaging of the K ration during the seven revisions of the ration before the final World War II specification was published. During that period the variety of biscuits was increased, newer and more acceptable meat products were introduced, malted milk tablets and D bars gave way to a variety of confections, additional beverage components were provided in improved packages, and cigarettes, matches, salt tablets, toilet paper and spoons were ultimately included as accessory items.

The cartons containing the individual meals also were subject to many changes. The first cartons were coated both inside and out with a thermoplastic compound. Later they were wax-coated on the outside only, wrapped in waxed paper, then coated with' a commercial product made from "unmilled crepe rubber and blended waxes," specified not to melt at 135 degrees nor "crack, chip, or otherwise become separated" from the surface of the carton at minus 20 degrees below zero. Other types of packages were tested, including a "thread opening fiber bodied can with metal ends." The wax-impregnated materials prevailed, however, and the ultimate requirements were for the familiar wax-coated inner carton placed in a second carton labeled and colored to indicate whether its content was breakfast, dinner, or supper.

As finally specified, the breakfast packet contained a canned meat product, biscuits, a compressed cereal bar, soluble coffee, a fruit bar, gum, sugar tablets, four cigarettes, water-purification tablets, a can opener, toilet paper, and a wooden spoon. The dinner carton had a canned cheese product, biscuits, a candy bar, gum, a variety of beverage powders, granulated sugar, salt tablets, cigarettes, and matches, a can opener and spoon. The supper packet included a canned meat product, biscuits, bouillon powder, confections and gum, soluble coffee, granulated sugar, cigarettes, can opener, and spoon. The biscuits, beverages, sugar, fruit bar, confections, gum, and spoon were packaged in a laminated cellophane bag while the canned meat and cheese product were put in a chipboard sleeve-type box. The two units were assembled and sealed in a waxed carton inclosed in the nonwaxed outer carton labeled with the K ration design and color. Twelve complete rations were packed in a fiberboard box which was overpacked in a nailed wood box for oversea shipment.

The first million K rations were ordered in May 1942 and were followed by increasing millions. In 1944, the peak year of production, more than 105 million rations were procured. Toward the end of the war, the usefulness of the K ration was coming to an end as a result of the emergence of a superior C ration. In postwar 1946, an Army Food Conference recommended that the K be discontinued and in 1948 the ration was declared obsolete by the Quartermaster Corps Technical Committee.42 It was then recommended that depot stocks be disposed of by utilization in the civilian feeding
program overseas. Like other unpopular items, misuse was a contributing factor to the waning popularity of the K ration. Although designed to be used for a period of two or three days only, the ration occasionally subsisted troops for weeks on end. There were times when this application was unavoidable; there were also occasions when the K was employed because it was easiest to issue. Continued use reduced the acceptability and diminished the value of the ration.