Army Field Kitchen: “Cooking Outfit For Small Detachments” 1961 US Army Training Film 20min

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“FEATURES, TRANSPORT, INSTALLATION AND USE OF UNIT – PROPER COOKING AND SERVING PROCEDURES – DISASSEMBLY AND PACKING OF UNIT FOR MOVE TO NEW AREA.”

US Army Training Film TF10-3119

Public domain film from the National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied.
The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

1944 TB 10-400-2 “Outfit, Cooking, Small Detachment”

RATIONS
Conference Notes
Prepared by The Quartermaster School
For the Quartermaster General
January 1949

THE HISTORY OF RATIONS…

Early American Rations

At the opening of the Revolutionary War, the colonies fed their own militia. Once the Army had grown, and had taken on a uniform character, the problem of feeding this unit became both acute and difficult. Shortly after George Washington was elected Commander in chief, the Continental Congress created a Commissary General of Stores Provisions, Joseph Trumbull, who had distinguished himself in feeding the Connecticut militia, was appointed to fill the job. The earliest legislation fixing the components of the Army ration was passed on November 4, 1775. A ration is the allowance of food for the subsistence of one person for one day. This first ration provided the following components:

l6 oz; beef 6.8 oz.peas

18 oz. flour 1.4 oz. rice

16 oz. milk .1830 oz. Soap

1 qt. spruce beer .0686 oz. candle

Compared with our present dietary requirements, this ration provided more calories, twice as much protein, an adequate supply of all minerals and vitamins with the exception of vitamins A and C…

Field ration D

Field ration D was developed by Colonel Paul P. Logan, who worked on its development from 1933 to 1937. This ration in no way resembled the old World War I ration, which has been called the Armour ration, or the reserve ration of 1922. It consisted of a chocolate bar, stabilized to a high melting point by the inclusion of oat flour, and it provided 600 calories. Three 4-ounce chocolate bars provided one ration.

Field ration D proved to be convenient and versatile; it can be called the first modern emergency ration. Because it did not provide the soldier with 3 full, palatable, and nutritionally balanced meals per day, it was felt that another ration was needed. Early in 1932, a Sanitary Corps Reserve officer submitted “a balanced meal in a can”, which consisted of a pound of stew composed of 12 vegetables, and 9 meats mixed in the proportions supposedly required to make a well-balanced meal and alleged to contain all the necessary vitamins and minerals.

Further development in ration research

Little attention was given to this can of food until in 1937 when W. R. McReynolds, the first director of the new Subsistence Research Laboratory inaugurated studies for the purpose of revising the reserve ration, and supplementing it with prepared meals in tin cans, such as beef stew, beef with noodles, etc. In 1938, Major McReynolds completed his work on the ration and called it a combat ration. It was presented to the Quartermaster Corps Technical Committee which approved it with the recommendation that a further study be made with a view to increase the caloric value of the ration. On 1 November, 1939, the Adjutant General announced the adoption of field ration C. It consisted of 3 cans containing a meat and vegetable component, and 3 cans, containing crackers, sugar, and soluble coffee; it furnished 2974 calories, 114 grams of protein, and an adequate supply of vitamins and minerals.

The K ration

Neither the C nor the D ration filled the need for a special ration suitable for use in highly mobile warfare. The D ration was intended to allay worst hunger of a single missed meal; the C ration was considered too heavy and bulky for mobile units. Dr. Ancel Keys, Director of the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene at the University of Minnesota, first suggested a ration to be used for parachute troops, tank corps, motorcycle troops and other mobile units. Several organizations worked on the specifications prescribed by Dr. Keyes for such a ration. The final results of this work was the ration officially designated as field ration, type K. The letter K had no particular significance; it was chosen merely to have a phonetically different letter from the letters C and D. The K ration was officially adopted in 1942. It was packed in 8 units, and yielded approximately 8300 calories, 99 grams of protein, and was slightly under specifications in minerals and vitamins as recommended by the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Research Council…