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U.S. Army Field rations in Berlin Overview & photo series by Reinhard story: 'Adventure in the Grunewald' by Rainer Hoffmann |
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Overview: K-Ration 1945 - 1948 Consists a Breakfast (B) Unit, a Dinner (D) and a Supper (S) Unit. Each individual box contained Meat, Egg , and / or Cheese-Meat products in cans, Biscuits, Sweet or Fruit bar, Chewing Gum, Boullion Powder, Coffee or Orange/Grape Powder, Sugar, Cigarettes, Matches, Toilet Paper and a wooden Spoon.
The main ration box contained 6 large cartons. Each carton contained food for one person / day. There were 3 meat / bread units, different cake or fruit units, a large accessory packet and 1 pack of 20 cigarettes.
The main ration box contained 12 small cartons with individual meals. 3 cans ( 1 meat,- and 1 cracker unit and either or a cake or fruit unit, and a small can with jam, cheese or peanut butter) Also a small accessory packet with Milk,- and Coffee powder, Sugar, Salt, Gum, Matches, wrapped plastic spoon, Toilet paper and a pack of 4 cigarettes (Pall Mall, Winston, Marlboro, Lucky Strike, Salem etc.) The contents of C-rations meal packs had changed very often.
Mids of the 1980, the first MREs had replaced the C-ration food generation. Instead of the well known green cans in cartons, the new MRE rations (12 plastic pouches/main carton box) were packed in folio which was wrapped in small flat cartons. Those were packed in large dark brown pouches. The food in folio was easier to heat but the juicy fruit units came now as "dry crackers". The MRE meals (IN-OUT) changed all the time. After the Berlin Brigade had left Berlin (1994), the MRE pouches got a light brown color and got 24 instead 12 different meals.
Photo-Show U.S. Field rations in Berlin
Adventure in the Grunewald At school, during break-time in the yard you could hear the shooting from the nearby forest. One day someone brought some empty blanks along and these golden heavy things fascinated me. On our first trip to the Grunewald a friend and me stepped onto a pile of shells from a Browning machine-gun. From this moment on I was caught. However a few months later, during some big fall exercise I made a new experience. While leaning my bicycle onto a small tree I saw a green can beneath my feet. I lifted it up, it was heavy, and I read "Beef, Peas w/Gravy". I did not realize what it was, so I showed it to a soldier and he explained it to me (with hands and feet, because that year I just had my first English lessons at school). He also dug in his pants-pockets and presented some jelly-bars, green, red and yellow, soft candy, which tasted delicious. (In Germany 1958 times for small boys were not so good). Later the same day my best friend, who was always along with me, came up with an "Apricots" can. Wow !!!! That day we were really excited and from now on changed from blanks to rations. We always tried to make contact to the soldiers, because most of them were very friendly (even if you had no big sister), and almost everybody selected the "good stuff" from the ration and did not care about the rest. But we did. Two or three times a week we checked certain areas of the Grunewald, because the Forces always had their big camps at the same places. Here, not in the "hot zone" our chances were best to make contact. Very often when we came back the next day we met the same soldiers. Black'n white name plates were very helpful. Whenever somebody recognized what we were after, we received some "gifts". But even after the maneuver we had our chances. "Pollution" was a strange word those days, and we found many left-over blinking in the sun. Cardboard in a fresh fox-hole meant normally that someone had left something for us behind. My favorites were: Chocolate Fudge from the big bread units, Peanut Butter, Jam, totally different from German jam, Cookies, Fruit cans, and some creamy Chicken Soup paste out of the Accessory Packet. Big round cocoa disks lay around almost everywhere. A bit salty, but great. Not mentioning the cans, "Beef, Peas w/Gravy" and "Ham & Lima Beans" (Yes, honest, no lie), and last but not least "Pound Cake". My friend fancied "Date Pudding" and some greasy "Ham & Eggs" stuff, which later was in the 1961 box. Dry Cream Powder tasted like ice-cream and with the coffee-powder I could make my mother happy. And we used this ration when we held our own maneuvers in a sand-pit near the Teufelsberg (T-Berg). One friend's father was a carpenter and he produced some wooden Carbines for us. Can you imagine how we felt, when we sat in our fox-holes, eating the same ration as the soldiers did?
Anyway, all you Veterans, thank you for leaving so many "goodies" behind. |
| Photo-Show U.S. Field rations in Berlin |
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