Food rations in the Japanese forces

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Peter H
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Re: Food rations in the Japanese forces

#346

Post by Peter H » 01 May 2010, 08:43

Logistics in the Kokoda campaign 1942,from Craig Collie's The Path of Infinite Sorrow..:

Page 56
..with a front line of 5,000 men,each with a daily food requirement of 600 grams,the daily needs of South Seas Force was estimated to be three tonnes of provisions.By the time the frontline got to the Owen Stanley saddle..Tanaka estimated that 230 carriers would be required daily for a twenty-day round trip,that is,4600 carriers in total.Once the front moved to Port Moresby,32,000 carriers[!] would be required.Munitions and other supplies would add to the load but,since 32,000 men were already out of the question,that no longer mattered.
Page 197
The Takasago Volunteers had been working as carriers and labourers..They had the strength and natural agility in mountain and jungle that came from living all their lives in such terrain.Formosans have almost legendary status among Japanese veterans,who compare them favourably with the other colonial group,the Koreans.The story is frequently told that on the track Koreans would eat the rice they were delivering,whereas Formosans had been found lying dead from starvation alongside unopened bags of rice..at the same time,they could move noiselessly through the jungle and had an uncanny ability to enter the enemy's camp and pilfer food from inside tents.
Page 173
[Kokoda airdrop of rice packs by the IJNAF,October 1942]..'The navy bombers just dropped food here.You can go and grab some'..when the drop was completed and the planes had flown away,the men on the ground went into the bush and came back with rice..[they] felt full for the first time in weeks..

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Re: Food rations in the Japanese forces

#347

Post by Mil-tech Bard » 01 May 2010, 17:26

Japanese emergency ration was first canned. The chemical warfare was one of its reasons. However, it was later wrapped with water-proof paper, because canned ration was heavy and wasted metal.


Ouch! 8O

That won't stop mustard gas contamination. Mustard is hydrophilic -- it seeks out water to chemically bond with.

Wrapping with water proof paper still allows water vapor (and Mustard gas!) to penetrate unless you seal it with wax or some sort of mechanical seal. si

American military standard packaging requires desiccant behind water vapor proof paper covering inside reusable containers for that reason, among others.

Did IJA pr IJN emergency food rations use any sort of desiccant?


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Re: Food rations in the Japanese forces

#348

Post by Akira Takizawa » 02 May 2010, 07:11

Mil-tech Bard wrote:Did IJA pr IJN emergency food rations use any sort of desiccant?
No. Before given to soldiers, they were packed in large tin can. So, it was not a problem that they were wet only while soldiers were carrying them in short time.

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Re: Food rations in the Japanese forces

#349

Post by Mil-tech Bard » 02 May 2010, 15:46

No. Before given to soldiers, they were packed in large tin can.


So emergency group rations were canned, but emergency individual rations were not?

Then were standard IJA & IJA rations canned at all?

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Re: Food rations in the Japanese forces

#350

Post by Akira Takizawa » 02 May 2010, 17:21

> So emergency group rations were canned, but emergency individual rations were not?

Each ration was wrapped with paper and 66 rations were packed into can.

> Then were standard IJA & IJA rations canned at all?

Japanese standard ration was rice. It was packed in sack.

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Re: Food rations in the Japanese forces

#351

Post by Sewer King » 19 May 2010, 06:03

Akira Takizawa wrote:
Mil tech bard wrote: Did IJA pr IJN emergency food rations use any sort of desiccant?
No. Before given to soldiers, they were packed in large tin can. So, it was not a problem that they were wet only while soldiers were carrying them in short time.
This sounds like the British or US Trench Rations of World War I, which also were in large tin cans (25 rations in the US one). Trench rations were originally meant to stay in the trenches as part of the position, not to be moved with the unit as part of its equipment. But they were often opened and distributed as combat rations anyway. Japanese observers with the British on the Western Front may have started with this example (as did the Americans).

The American D Ration chocolate bars of 1942 were originally sealed in heavily waxed cardboard packets to keep out poison gas. But by 1944 they were merely wrapped in cellophane 3-pack strips that were themselves packed in large tins.
  • Desiccation was a problem for weapons of US Ordnance, rather than food packaging of Quartermasters. To keep small arms and other weapons from rusting in shipment, dessicant packets were placed in their packaging from around 1943. The best-known problem with US combat rations was their monotony, but also their inability to withstand hot climate.
Early in the thread was a link to this wartime US intelligence bulletin: It seems to be one of the few close-up contemporary studies in English of IJA/IJN combat rations. The US Army Quartermaster Corps had done technical study of German field rations just after the war, but I have not seen if there were any similar ones for those of Japan.

Was this bulletin generally accurate in either its translations or information?
  • Even if it is, it looks at only a few examples, although mentioning some of what else may be found among them.

    The full menus of these rations would be interesting to see. Since they were in use long before the Pacific War, they were already superior in concept and variety to the American canned Reserve Ration of that time (originated before WW1). The suffering of many Japanese troops for food is widely known and commonly written about, but the prewar advances in rations they enjoyed are not.
=================================
hisashi wrote:Maizuru's claim [to origin of nikujaga, classic beef stew] was originally from Citizen's group ... (Maizuru Nikujaga Fest Program Commettee). Their first-hand accounts are informative on the order of events and claims...

They appealed Maizuru as Nikujaga's origin in 1995 and replicated navy's nikujaga from old navy manual preserved in Maizuru JMSDF base. In 1997, Kure noticed Maizuru's claim and asserted that Togo's appointment to Kure was earlier to Maizuru. Maizuru's group felt uneasy but noticed the media began to pick up their 'struggle' than when Maizuru appealed lonely.

On the other hand Yokosuka appealed Curry's origin in 1998. In 1999, Maizuru's group appealed the other three ex-Chinjufu navy towns, including Sasebo, to meet together for a joint-festival. Sasebo was reluctant, but after several encouraging from Maizuru, they opened Sasebo-burger's shop in the Yokosuka joint-fest in 1999. The reputation was good and after 2001 Sasebo city office pushed Sasebo-burger in various touring promotions.
Thanks hisashi.

Sometimes rivalries might tell things about the cities or regions who argue about whose food or dish is original or best. They can show different angles of history, economy, or even myth (good myth) .
  • In Europe there is rivalry in the south about whose country’s olive oil is best, or in the north about whose beers are best. In the American South it was said that chicken cannot be batter-fried properly in the North, while the North says that vegetables are boiled into mush in the South.
The dish dispute between the formerly naval cities sounds friendly enough. But I did not understand that a city’s naval past might be as sensitive as quoted in the Yomiuri Shimbun article. Even if mistaken, I had imagined that the Imperial Navy had a different historical reputation than the Army. Also, somewhere, I have read a modern Japanese say that many young people do not understand at all that their country once had a powerful, world-class navy.
hisashi wrote:On the other hand, the animation Popeye was on air from 1959 in Japan and very popular. Even in prewar era they say some magazines introduced Popeye cartoons. It cannot be judged how Hamburger was known in Japan in early days, in 1960s many Japaneses knew Hamburgers as 'something Wimpy is always eating'.
In travels abroad during the 1920s, several leading Japanese cartoonists observed the success of comic strips in American newspapers. Afterward, a number of US strips gained some popularity in prewar Japan, such as Bringing up Father (Maggie and Jiggs), Blondie, Felix the Cat, and others. Popeye the Sailor was contemporary. The animated Popeye cartoons began in 1933 and variously continued as late as the 1980s.
  • (Schodt, Frederik L., with foreword by Tezuka Osamu. Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics (Kodansha International, 1983), pages 43-46)

    Britain also knew hamburgers from the Wimpy character in Popeye, which led to a long-running Wimpy’s restaurant chain dating from the 1950s, coincidentally the same time as the Japanese burgers. In Britain the hamburger itself was called a “wimpy” and everyone knew why.
The many card comics we have seen here of IJA and IJN life used some Western comic-drawing styles and conventions of the time. These were adapted to Japan's own illustration styles, like various other techniques, technologies -– or foods.

-- Alan

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Re: Food rations in the Japanese forces

#352

Post by Sewer King » 25 May 2010, 19:46

Peter H wrote:From ebay,seller eby071: (Three mess kits over cooking fire)
A classic field cooking scene, but does the caption suggest the date? The soldiers are wearing what look like the khaki field uniforms.

I have not yet seen a photo of a Japanese soldier carrying one of these teapots on the march. It would seem important equipment. In some earlier photos here, they look mostly to be this size. Were they issue items, maybe one per squad?

====================================
Peter H wrote:From the “Tsingtao 1914” thread: Rice ball
Image
Most seem to be eating rice balls from their hands, a handy meal that is, because it is like fast-food ... Earlier we have seen that in Imperial times, many Japanese had not eaten rice every day until they went into the military. Was there always umeboshi or something else inside a rice ball meal, or could they be just plain rice also?

Unfortunately, someone here seems to have dropped his on the ground.

====================================
Peter H wrote:From ebay,seller wwkochan: (Mess kits on table outdoors)
This looks like a barn or stables, to guess from the straw or hay storage behind the soldiers. To eat their meal standing up, they probably moved the table outdoors.

At another meal, a long, fine-looking wooden chest used as an outdoor mess table also looks “borrowed” from indoors. Is there a Chinese guest at far right? If so, he might have been consciously included in the photo.

====================================
Peter H wrote:From ebay,seller asaken: (Making rice cakes (mochi)?)
If it is mochitsuki, the setting is a little different from earlier photos we have seen of this tradition, because the rubble in the background looks like that of recent fighting. The men making the cakes look cheerful enough, but the background suggests a New Year during the long China war –- or the Pacific War’s opening victories, early in 1942.

====================================
Peter H wrote:The problem of food logistics is mentioned by Edward Drea in his Japan's Imperial Army
China 1942 ... a neglect of logistics, shortages of food, ammunition, and transportation left hungry Japanese soldiers mired in the mud during the heaviest rainy season in sixty years …[page 227]
This sounds akin to the struggle of German troops in the snows (and mud also) of Russia. The worst snows or rains in decades sometimes seem to coincide with great military offensives in history. It almost seems as If war sometimes has some connection to the weather, at least in the defender’s favor.

There are specialized studies of German Army logistics on the Eastern Front, published by the US Army among others. Does anyone know of similar studies about Japanese Army supply in China or the Pacific? I don't expect there are many, unless maybe in Japanese.

Transportation was naturally the weakest link in the IJA's logistic chain, but I am not sure that it was a matter of neglect, as Drea put it. Imperial Japanese strategy depended on swift victory –- even though its materiel needs were less, and its soldiers' lives spartan enough.
... Logistics support was poor in all theaters and collapsed completely in some. The late military historian Fujiwara Akira asserted that a majority of Japanese military deaths during the Asia-Pacific War resulted from starvation, not hostile action. Put differently, the army's incompetence killed more Japanese soldiers than did the Allies. In China, where Fujiwara served, logistics were left to his infantry battalion rather than specialised construction and transportation units. Although a more conservative recent analysis lowers Fujiwara's percentages, it generally concurs with his estimates. [Drea, page 238]
  • Footnote: Fujiwara Akira, Uejini shita eiyutachi [Starving Heroes] 2001 (Hata Ikuhiko, ]Dai niji seikai no Nihonjin senbotsusha zo [An image of Japanese war dead in the second world war], 2006..]
In her cultural history Modern Japanese Cuisine (London: Reaktion Press, 2006) widely cited here to date, Katarzyna J. Cwiertka mentions the same harsh statistic:
… Half of the troops that the Imperial Japanese Army lost between 1937 and 1945 died not on the battlefield but from starvation and malnutrition-related diseases …
There seems to be some broad agreement with this assertion and its high figure. I single it out here because it is staggering. It is closer to the mortality figures of Western armies in 19th century wars. Cwiertka, too, cited it from Fujiwara Akira, but from another work Ueijini shito eireitachi (Tokyo, 2001), page 3. She immediately added:
… These figures do not necessarily discredit the military catering system and military nutritional policies. They simply imply that the logistical capacities of the Japanese armed forces were unable to catch up with the expansionist ambitions of their leaders. The food supply at home deteriorated hand in hand with the losses at the front lines …
As with Drea, this too might be qualified further. Japan’s Pacific strategy was based on fast, decisive victory followed by negotiated settlement. This did not provide for defending long and vulnerable supply lines across vast ocean, which the expansion depended on.
  • A soldier can be trained for survival, but not for actual starvation. It is unlike –- and in addition to -- the stresses of combat and isolation. No soldier anywhere expects to die that way, however bravely Japanese troops accepted the likelihood of death in battle.
===================================

Oil, rubber, strategic metals, and minerals were shipped home from the occupied Asia-Pacific. But, how much or how little were foodstuffs also sent back to Japan? Didn’t the occupying Japanese armies usually eat foods from their operating areas? While the home islands were fed from their own lands as well as Korea, Manchuria, and Taiwan?

====================================
Peter H wrote:Barracks for sleeping … and eating
Some illustrations of Army soldiers in barracks show them eating on their bunks, as here, while we have seen other photos (and comics) showing the use of a mess table set up between the rows of bunks. Other comics show what looks like messhall dining, but hisashi explained this was eating at a PX (or the older term, at a canteen).

-- Alan

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Re: Food rations in the Japanese forces

#353

Post by Sewer King » 09 Jun 2010, 03:46

Earlier, we have seen accounts of food service aboard super-battleships Yamato and Musashi -- even photos and plans of their well-equipped galleys. Here is some telling of the same aboard their short-lived half-sister, carrier Shinano.

From Joseph F. Enright, Captain, USN; with James W. Ryan. Shinano! (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987), pages 93-94:
  • 2300 hours, 29 November 1944: Shinano is en route to Kure, under destroyer escort out of Yokosuka.
Several decks above the engine rooms. Lieutenant Commander Kabuo Narute, the ship's chief supply officer, swept his eyes once more around the great breadth of Shinano's main eating compartment. The sight was most pleasing to him. Under his direction the messmen had transformed the space into a cafeteria that would excite the envy of any shore-bound maitre d'hôtel and master chef.

Commander Narute had come up with the idea for the sirouka several days before [Shinano's] sailing from Yokosuka. It would be a special meal, to be served to all hands as midnight approached. The sirouka was prepared to honor and celebrate the maiden voyage of Imperial Japan's newest and greatest pride. With some trepidation, he had broached the idea to Captain Abe and had been surprised and gladdened to receive the skipper's hearty approval.

“Splendid idea, Narute. Splendid,” the skipper had agreed. “Ryokai. [Agreed]. Do it up right. The best you can get. The men have been performing in excellent fashion and deserve the sirouka. Be sure to include the civilian and shipyard workers.”

Commander Narute and his key staff had scoured the shops and markets throughout Yokosuka and its environs in an effort to purchase the tastiest specialty foods for the occasion. When the men sat down to eat they would -– at least for this meal –- have no sense that Japan had been at war for years. It was a treat they would long remember. In fact, the meal was truly delicious. The cost had exceeded the supply officer's budget, but Captain Abe managed to transfer funds from another account. Unknown to Commander Narute, the skipper had also helped pay for the special meal with a personal contribution.

Mentally, Commander Narute went over the menu: the pièce de resistance was adzuki, a sweet black bean soup with rice cakes. Just the thought of it made his mouth water. And there was more than enough for every man on board. Great batches of sugar had been added to it –- unbelievable, since sugar was on such short rations because of the war –- and there were mountains of rice cakes for every table. There was fruit too, huge bowls of many kinds, an almost unheard-of luxury for a warship, and difficult at best to find anywhere in Japan. Commander Narute was confident that it was a meal the men of Shinano would boast about for years to come – one that would become a legend throughout the Imperial fleet, in every port of call.
Page 125:
Navigator Nakimura retained his favorite post, standing to one side of the bridge chart and staring at the back of the captain's head. He was hardly conscious of Ensign Yasuda, who was busy maintaining the plot a few feet away. The navigator was beginning to feel fatigued and thought about how restorative it would be to stretch out in his berth -– even for a few minutes. But he stood ramrod straight … Tired as he was, he would have no difficulty in working around the clock another 24 hours if necessary …

With his very junior officer tending most efficiently to the navigating chores, Navigator Nakamura worried about the many defects still to be corrected aboard the ship. He had heard a litany of them at the time Shinano was delivered. And just an hour ago, when he had gone below for a quick bowl of black-bean soup, Lieutenant Inada had confided to him about his fears for the ship's pumps. The navigator had been in no mood to listen to more negative reports about the ship, particularly when the problems were not his responsibility. Besides, they would be at Kure shortly, and Shinano's deficiencies would be corrected. But Lieutenant Inada was one of the most dedicated and diligent young officers aboard, and the senior officer had allowed him to express his concerns while he sipped his soup.
Both men are there when Shinano was struck by four torpedoes from US submarine Archerfish, at 0317 hours Tokyo time. Page 148-149:
From the dreaded sound of the first explosion, Captain Abe recognized that Shinano was under submarine attack. He … was too familiar with battle conditions not to know immediately that concussions along the hull were torpedo warheads holing his ship. Well, let the enemy do his worst; he was firm in his belief that Shinano could sustain this kind of damage.

“Enemy torpedoes, gentlemen. Sound battle stations – all hands. Quickly, damage-control status reports. Immediately. Casualties. Get to it ...”

“Navigator Nakamura, order the helmsman to maintain our top speed. We must proceed with every knot the engine rooms can provide.

Lieutenant Sawamoto interjected almost immediately: “Captain Abe, the ship is listing. Nine … now ten degrees to starboard.”

… After relaying the captain's order to the helmsman, Navigator Nakamura told Ensign Yasuda to be sure to write down the Shinano's exact position when the torpedoes struck. The young officer promptly did so, also noting the time .. 0317 ...

Captain Abe responded [to initial calls]: “I want those full reports on our damage and from damage-control station. Tell them to get on it.” He went to the bridge chart, where Navigator Nakamura and Ensign Yosuda had unrolled a set of Shinano's blueprints and were studying them to determine the specific location of the torpedo hits … The first [had] struck the condenser room toward the stern on the starboard side.

Captain Abe turned to Lieutenant (j.g.) Michio Sawamoto, the OOD or kanpan shikau, who was also the son of the Imperial Navy's vice minister, and gave him an immediate order. “Deck officer, check the damage to the condenser room. Obtain a report from the steering room on damage and flooding there.”

Lieutenant Sawamoto, who only a short time ago had been enjoying the late portion of the sirouka celebration meal in his cabin, snapped off a cursory salute and hurried below …

Captain Abe's mind was in some turmoil as he thought about the fate of the carrier Akagi, which had been deprived of its electric steering by the Yankee bombs at Midway, resulting in a jammed rudder. Akagi had turned in huge circles to port until Japanese ships were forced to scuttle the carrier with torpedoes …
Shinano herself sank only seven hours later at 1055 hours, 29 November 1944.

The feast aboard Shinano compares to that aboard Yamato, on the eve of battle as told earlier about that ship. But the carrier did not even get the chance to see action, having been sunk while only en route to final fitting-out -– and only some ten hours after the feast. Civilian shipyard workers invited to the sirouka had been on board working on her many unfinished details.
  • (Is this term sirouka correct in Japanese?)
Good food aboard the three ships also sounds like the farewell meals and toasts for kamikaze pilots. It is one thing to do this for a small group of fliers. But for these great ships it was done for crews of thousands, although foodstuffs were getting scarce by that time in Japan and fine foods scarcer still.

The crews' appreciation is clear in many such accounts, though their service had always eaten well. So too is the captain's appreciation of his men's efforts, by his ready approval of the feast.

-- Alan

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Re: Food rations in the Japanese forces

#354

Post by Peter H » 12 Jun 2010, 00:39

Thanks Alan,always more to learn on this topic.

From ebay,seller eby071
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Re: Food rations in the Japanese forces

#355

Post by Peter H » 12 Jun 2010, 00:43

From ebay,seller tugsbote
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Re: Food rations in the Japanese forces

#356

Post by Peter H » 12 Jun 2010, 00:47

Same source.

Behind the lines,China.
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Re: Food rations in the Japanese forces

#357

Post by Peter H » 12 Jun 2010, 00:52

Same source.

Alcohol on hand
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Re: Food rations in the Japanese forces

#358

Post by Sewer King » 25 Jun 2010, 05:10

From the “Shanghai 1932” thread, a small detail in one of its photos hints at NLF feeding:
Peter H wrote:(NLF troops in Shanghai) At rest
Image
The sailor standing second from center right carries a rectangular container by a wire handle. Although blurred, it looks like the same Navy-issue food carrier as supposed earlier from mess tables aboard ship.
  • It also looks close to this surviving food carrier seen earlier, although not exactly so. This example seems to be made of aluminum -– a strategic metal in wartime. Even the Allies as well as the Germans soon replaced it with steel in their military mess kits, so the Japanese might have done the same.
If this is such a carrier, here it is used in field duty ashore. Maybe food was brought forward this way from the sort of NLF improvised field kitchen seen earlier?

I imagine that Navy troops did not typically use rolling field kitchens like the Army, at least not at this early time. Didn’t NLFs first operate in China mainly as light infantry with relatively short supply lines, and not so far inland?

=================================
Akira Takizawa wrote:... Japanese standard ration was rice. It was packed in sack.
With the importance of rice and the need to store it in bulk for field armies, the sacks would have had to be weatherproof. But in those days, the only way to make fabric truly waterproof was to coat it with a thin layer (or layers) of rubber or dissolved resin.

Such waterproof sacks would seem to be used for this great open-air army stockpile of rice seen earlier here. These are reportedly 50kg sacks, which would need two men to carry -- hopefully slung from poles or some other way. Other sources mention 20kg sacks in use, which could be carried by one man.

Once emptied, the waterproof sacks were said to be very useful as sandbags for building Pacific island fortifications. I would guess that Japanese troops made other good use of them in the tropics, where supplies were short and storm weather was harsh.

=================================
Peter H wrote:Logistics in the Kokoda campaign 1942, from Craig Collie's The Path of Infinite Sorrow,
from page 56
... with a front line of 5,000 men, each with a daily food requirement of 600 grams, the daily needs of South Seas Force was estimated to be three tonnes of provisions. By the time the frontline got to the Owen Stanley saddle, [ ] Tanaka estimated that 230 carriers would be required daily for a twenty-day round trip, that is, 4600 carriers in total. Once the front moved to Port Moresby, 32,000 carriers[!] would be required. Munitions and other supplies would add to the load but, since 32,000 men were already out of the question, that no longer mattered.
I don’t think the author meant to imply this, but it sounds as if the problem of provisioning troops on the offensive in difficult terrain was simply left as unsolvable. Men still needed to eat, even if half-rations or less. What then did they do?

Commanders are sometimes not very logistics-minded. That is left to their staff officers, while they themselves are concerned with operations. What was ultimately done for it in this campaign? Unfortunately for our focus, the military histories are not always supply-oriented either.
Page 197
The Takasago Volunteers had been working as carriers and labourers. They had the strength and natural agility in mountain and jungle that came from living all their lives in such terrain. Formosans have almost legendary status among Japanese veterans ... The story is frequently told that on the track Koreans would eat the rice they were delivering, whereas Formosans had been found lying dead from starvation alongside unopened bags of rice ...
As literally told, this raises some question. Starving men do not make good supply porters in any case. Whatever their portage duties, whether Korean or Formosan, wouldn’t they have been overseen by Japanese officers and NCOs? The Takasogo were certainly hardy men, but it might be that this telling was meant to say they were loyal and strong even unto death.
Page 173
[Kokoda airdrop of rice packs by the IJNAF, October 1942]... 'The navy bombers just dropped food here. You can go and grab some'..when the drop was completed and the planes had flown away, the men on the ground went into the bush and came back with rice..[they] felt full for the first time in week s...
I have not yet read anything about Japanese capabilities for cargo airdrop, or their cargo parachutes. We have seen a crate that has just been dropped to troops. There is also this photo of small items airdropped to civilian crowds as demonstration.

=================================
Peter H wrote:From ebay seller,eby071: (Soldiers eating from mess kits)
Chow at a barn or stables, to guess from the loose and baled straw around the men -- although the caption might say something more?

Was there any particular time when peaked service caps stopped being worn in action, being less practical than the field cap and steel helmet?

=================================
Peter H wrote:From ebay seller,tugsbote: (Soldiers in wintertime )
Rifles stacked, soldiers pause for a meal in snowy woodland. By looking closely at their faces, it can be seen that many of them have turned to look at the distant photographer, so it seems a candid photo.

=================================
Peter H wrote:From ebay seller,tugsbote: (Soldiers at ease)
I had thought these men might have canned food here, but those look like small plantings in the cans instead. These had likely been cans of food, of course, and their re-use suggests thrift of IJA camp life.
  • It does looks like an encampment although very little can be seen, with these soldiers at ease wearing geta (wooden platform clogs) and one of them holding a puppy dog. Is the soldier at right smoking a cigarette also wearing waraji (straw sandals)? They are relaxing along the embankment of a corduroy road, at a drainage culvert crossing under it.

    The road leads back toward what looks like a sentry's box with a slanted thatch roof.
    • Maybe the one soldier seen here with a rifle and cartridge belt is the sentry who would use it? If so, that might explain why he stands at attention here while the others can relax. A sentry must look alert on guard duty -– especially if he is photographed there.
=================================
Peter H wrote:Alcohol on hand
Explanation of this photo is thanks to hisashi: the handwritten banner at top left reads “To the victor, 1st Company.” It may have been a regimental sumo wrestling match won by six men of the unit, who are seated in the front rank, stripped down as for competition. Most of the other men are in shirtsleeve order.

The arrangement (and assortment) of bottled drink would seem to be part of their prize, one that would be appreciated by most soldiers anywhere.

=================================
Peter H wrote:(Cheer with beer)
Four men and seven beer bottles -– a good ratio. But maybe the photographer helped?

-– Alan

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Re: Food rations in the Japanese forces

#359

Post by Peter H » 03 Jul 2010, 01:17

Thanks Alan!

From ebay,seller morionoue

Canteen
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Re: Food rations in the Japanese forces

#360

Post by Peter H » 03 Jul 2010, 01:18

Same source.

"Meal allotment"
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