So you complained about the meat shortage! Maybe you still don’t like the idea that many of your favorite foods are missing from the grocery shelves. Don’t be ashamed of your attitude, for you’ve got a proper gripe. Plenty of food and meat have had as much to do with the building of the United States and its preservation in time of war as have all the statesmen, the admirals, and the generals.
You have a duty to eat the best food the country produces, and the United States has a duty to see to it that you get it—a little point which was overlooked by our late enemies, the Germans and the Japs.
When Hans Schnaps, late of the German Navy, slid his long legs under the mess table aboard the ill-starred Prinz Eugen, it was to look down upon a tray of unappetizing, ersatz food.
Maybe he had Wehrmacht soup—a slimy green product of alfalfa and hay. Maybe the main dish consisted of cubes of dehydrated sauerkraut. Certainly the meat—if he had it at all—was a mealy appearing mass of ground up gristle and soy beans. And when he broke off a chunk of 30-day-old hardtack, it was to butter it with coal-oil fat mixed with lard.
Faring even less well was Akimoto Shiba, Private First Class in His Japanese Majesty’s Imperial Marines. His average meal consisted of dehydrated rice flavored with rancid fish oil.
When battle quarters sounded, no wonder that Schnaps and Shiba had little inclination to fight. To be sure, they had enough calories, but the zest that thick steaks and fresh vegetables could have given them was singularly missing.
Now don’t mistake me. I don’t mean to say that Germany and Japan lost the war just because of food. Our men who did the fighting know better than that. But the fact that the enemy wasn’t well fed was a strong contributing factor to their defeat. Let me explain.
Military tacticians have always used a rule-of-thumb formula in determining the fighting strength of enemy armies and fleets. Add the number of guns each ship carries, and you come out with a figure representing the total fire power of the fleet. Do the same thing with the cannons, planes, guns, and tanks of the land forces and you have a fair idea of the strength of the army. By amending these factors with statistics on manpower and material resources, you can get a moderately accurate picture of the enemy forces.
In the main, this method of computation is satisfactory. But it has failed to explain certain instances such as the scuttling of the German ship Graf Spee, the sinking of the Bismarck, the decisive check in World War I of the German fleet in the otherwise even battle of Jutland, and the rout of the Japs in the battle of Surigao Straits.
A good argument can be given that those defeats were pretty well due to the poor fighting morale of the enemy.
Ask any of our fighting men what the factors were that kept him happy and in top- notch mental and physical condition. He’ll tell you in two words—food and discipline. Our forces, of course, didn’t always have the ideal amount of either, but by and large they did pretty well—much better than their Jap and German counterparts.
When our men griped, it wasn’t because they had no meat or because their steak was a sawdust substitute. It probably was because the steak wasn’t just quite rare or thick enough, or because they had fresh cabbage twice a week. The fact that the average soldier and sailor put on 10 pounds of weight during his service attests to that.
It was no idle boast that our men were the best-fed fighting men in the world. They were—and by far. We were lucky enough to have plenty of good food at home, and methods for transporting it to the front lines. And not only that, our Army and Navy leaders had been quick to recognize the truth of Napoleon’s well-worn phrase that an army travels on its stomach.
It’s an old story to all of you how the American farmers pitched in to raise bumper crops, and how the food technicians labored long hours to develop methods to get those crops in appetizing form to our soldiers and sailors. What isn’t so well known is what the Japs and Germans tried to do, and, fortunately for us, how they failed.
In Germany in 1940, Herr Hitler and his gang knew they were in for a long war. How long or with what results they didn’t quite guess, but they did know that they would have to plan on feeding a fighting force of ten million men as well as providing for the home folks.
They knew that Germany would have to isolate herself in so far as food imports were concerned. And so, in very businesslike fashion, they took an inventory of their food resources. First off, they discovered that their supplies of meat and dairy products were insufficient for a prolonged war. Second, they found that they were very limited in the types and quantities of fruits and vegetables necessary to supply minerals and vitamins.
To solve their problems, they created an office of General Staff Intendant and assigned to it a pompous little man with an unpronounceable name, Herr Pieszczek. Staff Intendant Pieszczek went right to work, and judging from the many press releases he had published of himself, he was indeed a busy little fellow.
In October of 1941 he established an Institute for Cooking Science. Located in Frankfurt-am-Main, the Institute had three important objectives: first, to attain the best possible results with the least possible supplies; second, to apply scientific knowledge to the manufacture and preparation of special foods; third, to cultivate a “German Art of Cooking” to make these special foods eatable.
Next the good General set up an “Institute for Food Research” in Munich. This institute, partially duplicating the work of the cooking science group, was to specialize in the development of new types of foods and to experiment with such preservation processes as dehydrating and sterilizing.
Sprat powder was the first of the major developments. Sounding more like an insecticide than a food—and looking the same way —it was a finely-ground mixture of corn, soy beans, and dried milk-albumen products, spiced with sumac. Highly nutritive, it could replace meat products. Sawdust-like in appearance, its general use was as a meat stretcher. It was the principle ingredient of Kommiss, a type of compressed ham, and German sausage.
Use of the soy bean wasn’t limited to sprat powder. Because of the high albumen content and because they were rich in vitamins B-2 and E, soy beans were used in bread, chocolate, soups, and gravies. Ground in similar fashion to peanut butter, they were even used as a spread for bread.
Though sprat powder and soy beans may have made the food nutritive, they did not add to its palatability. Even General Pieszczek, in one of his hundreds of press stories, admitted that the flavor of meats and other foods might be changed. He wasn’t very blunt about it, however, but asserted that a different taste “was perceptible only in isolated instances where the food was improperly mixed.” This difference in taste, though, was only natural, for sprat powder, soy bean paste, or flakes made up one-third of all processed food.
Next in importance to soy bean experiments were those conducted on ersatz yeast. When it was discovered that yeast could be manufactured from wood pulp, the entire wood-pulp industry was ordered to convert to the processing of yeast. Production jumped from 77 tons in 1939 to 8,597 tons in 1941.
When research showed that yeast was highly beneficial to humans, the wood product was given to the soldiers as a substitute for fifty per cent of albumen. It was fed to them in straight extract, in wort, in powdered cheese, and in a spread with an artificial liver wurst taste.
Bread was a big problem. When armies are on the move, when ships are continually at battle quarters, there is no opportunity for the baking of fresh bread. So a system for drying and preserving bread had to be developed.
Knaeckebrot, the forerunner of rye crisp, was the first and most successful development. Rich in vitamins, it was capable of being stored for very long periods.
A second development, resembling in form and taste what its name would indicate, was “durable bread.” Made with rye flour, it was baked with a crust on all sides, was wrapped first in double wax paper, then in cellophane, and lastly in wrapping paper. When wrapped, bread and wrapping were shoved back into the oven for sterilization at a temperature of about 150 degrees centigrade. This bread, though hard on teeth, could be stored for six months.
Complete meals made from ground whole corn were developed. Fed primarily to civilians and to captive laborers, they could be prepared rapidly, and in actual food value were efficient meat substitutes.
Prior to the war, sweets were considered a luxury in Germany and were served only at lunch on Sundays. But when scientists discovered that they could provide energy—as well as unbecoming non-Aryan fat—the Research Institutes turned-to with a will and came up with a pudding made from condensed skimmed milk. Not too appetizing by itself, it could nevertheless be used in soups, gruels, and fruit juice.
Most interestingly named of the ersatz products was Migetti, a rice imitation made from potato meal, egg white, and small amounts of grain meal. Ready for the kitchen, it could be substituted for rice, could be kept hot for many hours without losing its rice-like form, and more than that, could be stored indefinitely.
Satisfied that he had plumbed all possibilities for new foods, the Intendant General ordered emphasis to be placed on new methods of drying and preserving natural food products. Imagine the anticipatory gleam on the face of Hans Schnaps when he helped load case after case of powdered apples, powdered cheese, powdered marmalade, powdered soups, powdered puddings, powdered milk, powdered fruit drinks, and even powdered fish.
Most unsuccessful experiment was that of the fish paste. And no wonder. Smelt, complete with heads, fins, and scales, were ground and mashed. Sprat powder, powdered tomatoes, mustard, and dill were added. But in spite of the condiments, the resultant product still had, in the guarded words of Herr Pieszczek, “an unfortunate fishy taste.”
But the fish had to be used. And so the paste, whether edible or not, whether it would spread or not, was packed into cans, frozen into cubes, and sent out to the men fighting in France, Russia, and on and under the high seas.
Even sauerkraut, that traditional German staple, came in for its share of attention. With a mineral, aromatic acid, and vitamin content richer than that of fresh cabbage, it was quickly recognized as a very valuable food. Because it was more digestible than cabbage, and because it could be used in the form of either sauerkraut or sauerkraut juice, its use was promoted by the army.
The difficulties of transporting sauerkraut in containers was eliminated by pressing it into cubes. The juice itself was thickened with lactic acid, then dried and compressed into separate tubes for later adding to the kraut.
The volume of foods so processed was tremendous. In order to decentralize the processing and to avoid freight tie-ups, the Germans farmed out the work to their various satellites. Dehydration plants were set up in Hungary, Bulgaria, Italy, and Holland. To indicate the tremendous output, in 1941 Hungary alone processed over 2,400,000 pounds of dehydrated fruits and vegetables. Had these products been used in raw form, they would have totalled over 484,400,000 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables.
Had the palatability of the foods been equal to the mechanical accomplishment in preparing them, the result would have been admirable. But, as the General reluctantly indicated, they merely “resembled in form and flavor the raw product.”
What did all this have to do with Hans Schnaps and his fighting efficiency? Herr Pieszczek early announced that good food was necessary to good morale. He later admitted that the ersatz food substitutes, forced down the gullets of the unwilling Wehrmacht, were not good food in the sense of being palatable.
When food is poor, grumbles begin, men become pessimistic, and fighting efficiency drops. Admittedly, no one can say that poor food was the direct cause of the German defeat, but it is certain that it did have its effect. Maybe it wasn’t as potent a weapon as our M-l’s and Mark 4’s, but it did make for a lot of dissatisfied German soldiers and sailors.
If Hans Schnaps suffered, Akimoto Shiba fairly writhed. He didn’t even have the advantage of such delicacies as sawdust meat and rancid fish paste. His diet, during the last year of the war, consisted almost solely of 705 grams of rice per day.
To be sure, supplementary foods were authorized, but they weren't to be had. Soy sauce, eggs, and pickled vegetables weren’t available for distribution to the army or to the fleet. Actual malnutrition was evident.
Letters captured from the Japs indicate better than comparative figures the almost pitiable condition of the armed forces.
Wrote Hashimoto Aki, a warrant officer, to his wife back in Tokyo: “Yesterday we had the utmost good fortune. Lieutenant Hideki, on patrol, discovered an abandoned ration dump of the American forces. For the first time in weeks we feasted. Many of the delicacies had been sealed in cans (apparently our C or K rations). It is difficult to understand how a defeated force can be so well supplied. We often wonder if ... ”
Lieutenant Homma, a prisoner of war aboard a U. S. Naval vessel, tasted ice cream for the first time in his life. In an enthusiastic letter home, he tried to describe his taste sensations. “It was as if snow had been mixed with cane sweetening and the whole of it had been beaten with cream into a cool, smooth pyramid of utmost delight.”
The Japanese had tried to emulate the Germans in their search for substitute food. But Japanese facilities were limited, food products were scarce, and few of the canned items reached the fighting front.
Though logistics requirements called for salt, pickled vegetables, cooking oils, tea, sweets, sake, and cigarettes, none of these items were actually shipped to the forces after January of 1944. Only one-fifth of the meagre meat allotment reached the messes of the fighting men. Only one-third of the rice allotment was available to the troops.
Everyone who fought the Japs remarked about their unpredictability. When they were well fed, as at Saipan and at Iwo Jima, they fought valiantly. Surrender was not in their vocabulary.
Yet in the closing days of Guadalcanal, when the enemy had been forced back into the mountains, it was not at all uncommon for hungry Japs to sneak down out of the hills and line up with the GI’s at mess call.
What does all this really illustrate? It shows that food is a potent weapon in time of „ war. It shows that lack of good food was a contributing factor in the defeat of Germany and Japan.
It also shows that food is as vital in times of peace as in times of war. Good food is necessary to our own national preparedness; food is our ambassador of good will in the war-torn countries of Europe. Food is our assurance that European governments will be established on the basis of logic rather than on pinch-belly thinking.
So the next time you sit down to a good steak dinner, look at that meal with respect. It did its part to preserve today’s independence; it will help insure a lasting peace between the nations and the peoples of the world. It is as valuable a natural resource as uranium and iron ore. Don’t forget to treat it as such.