"The other meals were C-Rations. Those were canned meals of World War Two vintage which contained a couple of green-painted cans, an accessory pack with chewing gum, matches, salt and pepper packs, an insultingly small pack of toilet paper, and a tiny pack of five cigarettes, often Lucky Strike Green label brand – the pack was colored green instead of red for the duration of the war – WWII).
There was also a thin foil-wrapped disc of tropical chocolate (“Sh_t Discs”) in each box but these were despised because they were gritty-tasting and had an odd chemical smell. Others had the can of round "John Wayne" crackers and small flat cans of wither cheese spread or peanut butter, which were OK if you were really hungry.
The C-Rations themselves had a numbing uniformity and the choices were limited to:
- Beans and Meatballs (“Beans and Balls”)
- Beans and Weenies (a favorite)
- Beef and Potatoes (“Beef and Rocks”)
- Ham, Sliced
- Turkey Loaf
- Eggs, Chopped
- And of course, the most hideous of them all, Ham and Lima Beans (“Ham and M-F'ers") Normally, Ham and Limas would have been great but the manufacturer used cuts of ham that came from some disgusting position on a pig (presumably) and was loaded with a foul-smelling grease. The only way to make them even slightly palatable was to drain the can of all fluid, then replace it with water, heat it, then pour out the water. Nobody wanted Ham and Mothers.
There were other items that were included that were sought after, like canned peaches or fruit cocktail or canned bread but the can of fruitcake was another item we avoided. In rear areas, whole cases of C-Rations were opened and only the preferred items taken, and the rest thrown out. The process was known as “Rat F'ing” the C-Rations.
We used to heat our C-Rats by punching holes in one of the smaller cans to make it into a little stove and then burned a white, waxy Trioxane fuel tablet in it which was quite capable of heating one or more of the large cans but it was also capable of choking you like poison gas if you were dumb enough to burn the things in an enclosed space. Later, we also learned that we could heat C-Rations using bits of C-4 explosive which burned hot but safely or pellets of cannon propellant. Those last items required very careful feeding, one at a time, into the fire because they would flare up into a very large and hot flame suddenly and burning yourself was common. It really boiled water fast, though. While I was a truck driver, the other drivers showed me the trick of heating a C-Rat can on the exhaust manifold of my truck: you punched a small hole in the top of the can – for obvious reasons – and then opened the right fold-down section of the engine compartment to put the can on top of the exhaust manifold. About ten minutes of driving and voilà, chow is served. Of course, you had to stop the truck to go get the can from under the hood first. If you were one of the less scientifically adept and didn’t punch the holes in the top of the van, you’d have to scrape a whole lot of beans sprayed all over the inside of the engine compartment and put up with that burnt bean smell for a while. Not that I would know"
tip: if you ever cook yer chow on jp4 do NOT pee on the jp4 at the end of the night to put out the light...
Thank you for the breakdown. Brings back memories. I liked them... But I will eat and like anything that has Calories and Protein. lol
😜
S/F ...