Food rations in the Japanese forces

[hisashi]

These two red lacquer bowls (approx. 9cm diameter) are among displays of airmen's equipment from around the world at the Smithsonian Institution. From the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) Steven S. Udvar-Hazy Center at Chantilly, Virginia.

I found it. It is a natsume(棗). A tea powder case.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaki#Usuc ... 2F_natsume

So the largest two character was an artfully handwritten '茶棗'.

[Luftflotte2]

Great looking sake bottles and cups. Apparently some select units had their own made, and then there was a non-specific type for others.
From a recently finished sale by seller yoicho29. All of this went for $102.50 US.

[hisashi]

Hi Luftflotte2,

Large military organization always makes a huge market. When a draftee's mandatory retirement had come, they often ordered a lot of sake cup etc. and presented them to their relatives and mates celebrating their safe return. Vendors offered localized ones (say, with the characters of '82nd infantry regiment') and easy-order plans (filling names etc. into ready-made stereotypes).

[Luftflotte2]

Thanks hisashi!

[Sewer King]

Great looking sake bottles and cups. Apparently some select units had their own made, and then there was a non-specific type for others.
From a recently finished sale by seller yoicho29 …

Large military organization always makes a huge market … Vendors offered localized ones (say, with the characters of '82nd infantry regiment') and easy-order plans (filling names etc. into ready-made stereotypes).

Would there have been especially fine sets for ranking officers when they retired?

Would many or most of the commemorative saké bottles and cups date from 1930s, because of later wartime austerity? As noted earlier from author Kondō Hiroshi (Saké: a Drinker's Guide), production and quality of saké itself was lowered by the war.

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These two red lacquer bowls (approx. 9cm diameter) are among displays of airmen's equipment from around the world at the Smithsonian Institution. From the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) Steven S. Udvar-Hazy Center at Chantilly, Virginia.

I found it. It is a natsume (棗). A tea powder case.

So the largest two character was an artfully handwritten '茶棗'

Many thanks for your research Hisashi, especially since I and most others probably know only little about tea ceremony. I had imagined that this earlier photo of Navy floatplane aviators showed it.

The NASM caption is even more incorrect then. Tea ware like natsume seems a relatively fine thing. But actual rice bowls, such as an officer might buy –- were they usually something more ordinary, and less a fine item boxed like this?

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I have the impression that the IJA’s rolling field kitchens were not often seen in the Pacific war, because they are not in photographs. Nor did the Americans seem to find one, to include it in their Handbook of Japanese Military Forces. Of course those are not reliable ways to know, since there are many photos I haven’t yet seen, or are not more widely published.

Could the following be more reasons why?

• Rolling kitchens were unsuited for combat on islands or in jungle? Motor- or horse-drawn power, fuel, and smoke are problems in those areas, even in the rear.
  
  Supply plans often relied on local foodstuffs or forage. Subunits cooked their own food in their mess kits.
  
  Kitchens mattered little where Japanese Army forces went to defensive fighting after 1943-44, and many were often short of rations?

In any army, rolling kitchens are typically pictured with the infantry. Wouldn’t they have been part of the IJA tank units too –- maybe with their motorized train?

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Is there any other specific information on [the IJA rolling field kitchen]? What the features were? How many men could it feed? What was the official designation?

from Gordon Rottman's "Japanese Infantryman 1937-45: Sword of the Empire," Osprey Warrior Series volume 95. page 46

IJA rolling field kitchen.jpg (10.83 KiB) Viewed 2596 times

It is called Yesen Suijisha (Field kitchen vehicle). It had four iron pots on the vehicle. A pair of Yesen Suijisha could feed about 1,000 men of battalion.

Thank you Taki, it helps! I am trying to build a copy of one...

This sounds ambitious, at any level. It would be impressive to scratch-build a replica IJA field kitchen.

• Drew, are you considering a scale model? One that can be disassembled to show inside?

If sources are limited, even drawing up construction plans would seem a challenge by itself. Besides the one photo in Rottman’s Osprey volume, are there few other close-up photos useful for re-construction?

• There might be some comparison to interest in German Army field kitchens (Feldkuechen). Note that there are no reproduction ones, according to an AHF thread about re-enacted Heer field kitchens. One unit is fortunate enough to operate an actual, original one salvaged from the Netherlands. Another unit makes use of a Czech Army equivalent, which is reasonably close.
  
  Anyone who could build a good, working reproduction of a German field kitchen would draw great interest. But it would also be quite expensive and a job to maintain, transport, and house it. There are many photos of them to use as sources, even here in this Forum. Recently there was even a specialized book about Feldkuechen.

Private reconstruction of a Japanese field kitchen would take still more research, work, time, and craft.

Could the body of a Yesen Suijisha could be dismounted from its wheels, and set up on the ground?

Might there be any surviving example or model in the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force Museum?

-– Alan

[Akira Takizawa]

> Besides the one photo in Rottman’s Osprey volume, are there few other close-up photos useful for re-construction?

Source : "戦場の衣食住"

Yesen Suijisha.jpg (41.62 KiB) Viewed 2585 times

> Could the body of a Yesen Suijisha could be dismounted from its wheels, and set up on the ground?

The wheels can be removed. The body without wheels was mounted on truck or train so that they became kitchen truck or train.

> Might there be any surviving example or model in the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force Museum?

I have never heard that it exists.

Taki

[Sewer King]

Thank you very much Taki! This view shows better detail than the one in Rottman's Japanese Infantryman 1937-45.

When did the IJA adopt the Yesen Susjisha? In 1917, US Army Medical Corps Colonel Valery Havard wrote that rolling field kitchens of the WW1 European armies followed the Imperial Russian design. Had the IJA done the same, particularly after the 1904-05 victory over Russia?

A few details or parts are easy to identify, as annotated below. But others are reasoned guesses with the (?) after them.

(source as above)

IJA rolling field kitchen Yesen Suijisha, annotated.JPG (45.01 KiB) Viewed 2541 times

• (1) - Cotter pin, attached with a chain, to lock the folding chimney in the ’up’ position. There looks like a C-shaped coupling at the chimney's hinge that the pin would fasten.
  
  (2) - Forked rest to hold the chimney, when folded down for travel. Chimney has angled top end to reduce rain getting inside.
  
  (3) - Storage drawers for utensils or cooking ingredients. Two drawers (out of three?) are visible (with pins at side? to fasten them closed in travel). On the other side of the kitchen, opposite these drawers, is a large cabinet(?), visible in Rottman’s photo.
  
  (4) - Drop ledge(?) hinged along each side of the kitchen, here folded in 'up' position. If so, they would be held level in 'down' position by the chains at each end of them. Then they would serve as narrow work counters, or to stand up soldiers’ mess kits being filled from the cookpots.
  
  • US Army trade workshop trucks of World War I had drop sides like this. When let down, they served as work tables when the shop body was up on its truck. if the shop was dismounted and put on the ground, then they became extensions of the shop's floor.
  (5) - Wagon wheel brake pad for parking the kitchen, especially on uneven or sloped ground. If so, where would its brake lever be?
  
  (6) - Four cookpots, with lids fastened by wingnuts (are there different sizes of pots?).
  
  • This is interesting, since wingnuts are typically used to lock down the lids of pressure cookers. Imperial Russian Army field kitchens cooked their stews under high-pressure steam. But steamed Japanese dishes are not made this way. So on the IJA pots, maybe the wingnuts just fastened the lids for travel.
    
    The cookpot of the Russian field kitchen was double-walled. Its inner one was tinned copper, for the food. The outer one was sheet-iron lined with asbestos, to withstand the firebox flame.
  (7) - Spigot(?), as for water, with one on each side. If for dispensing water, either hot or cold (?)
  
  • Russian field kitchens supplied hot tea along with their food. They also had these spigots in a similar place. Earlier we have seen one of the IJA's few electric kitchen trucks taking on water, possibly from a field purification unit.
  It seems that the standard Yesen Suijisha also had a water tank on it.
  
  (8) - Firebox doors. They seem to have radial slots to allow air in to the fire (adjustable slots?) Could air be blown in to the fire to burn it hotter? The kitchen would seem to be fired with the usual solid fuels –- coal, charcoal, or wood, in that order of heat efficiency
  
  (9) - Ash cleanout doors. There may be iron fire grates inside, which could be pulled out for dumping ashes out and scraping off tar.
  
  (10) - Crank handle (for wheel brake? or for locking kitchen body onto its trailer?)
  
  (11) – Angle-iron to hold kitchen body on its trailer.

The wheels can be removed. The body without wheels was mounted on truck or train so that they became kitchen truck or train.

If Japanese tank units used these kitchens, were theirs truck-mounted in this way?

Maybe in the company train of support vehicles?

• (cf. Rottman and Takizawa, World War II Japanese Tank Tactics, Osprey Elite series volume 169 (Osprey Publishing Ltd, 2008), page 7 and plate E)

I hadn't thought of Yesen Sujisha mounted on trains. They would have had to be on flatcars.

• Would this have been more common in the China theater? Operating the kitchens aboard trains also implies the long inland movement of troops by railroad, such as in China.

-– Alan

[Akira Takizawa]

> When did the IJA adopt the Yesen Susjisha?

It was developed in 1927.

(4) - Drop ledge(?) hinged along each side of the kitchen, here folded in 'up' position.

Yes. See the previous photo. It opens a ledge.

(6) - Four cookpots, with lids fastened by wingnuts (are there different sizes of pots?).
They are the same.

• This is interesting, since wingnuts are typically used to lock down the lids of pressure cookers. Imperial Russian Army field kitchens cooked their stews under high-pressure steam. But steamed Japanese dishes are not made this way.
  
  They are for boiling rice. A high-pressure is needed to boil rice.
  
  (7) - Spigot(?), as for water, with one on each side. If for dispensing water, either hot or cold (?)
  
  It is for hot water. Yesen Susjisha can be used as boiler vehicle as well.
  
  (8) - Firebox doors. They seem to have radial slots to allow air in to the fire (adjustable slots?) Could air be blown in to the fire to burn it hotter?
  
  Yes
  
  (10) - Crank handle (for wheel brake? or locking kitchen body onto its trailer?)
  
  Probably
  
  > If Japanese tank units used these kitchens, were theirs were truck-mounted in this way?
  
  I don't know the example that it was used in tank unit.
  
  > Would this have been more common in the China theater?
  
  Yes. But, it was also used in the Pacific.
  
  Taki

[Sewer King]

Thanks again for this good info Taki, it is more than what is available anywhere in English on the subject.

When did the IJA adopt the Yesen Susjisha?

It was developed in 1927.

This is the same time during which you said the IJA developed its packaged combat meals, and Katarzyna Cwiertka wrote that the garrison ration was improved. Both arose from the observations of World War I's Western Front.

But I haven't yet found a photo of a British or French field kitchen for comparing to the Japanese one, although there are enough photos of the German and Russian designs. Most rolling field kitchens of this time are basically similar.

(4) - Drop ledge(?) hinged along each side of the kitchen, here folded in 'up' position.

Yes. See the previous photo. It opens a ledge.

Earlier I had wondered at what looked like a ledge in that photo, but it was on the outside of the wagon wheel. However, that would be easier to use than if it was behind the wheel, as it looks in the annotated photo.

(6) - Four cookpots, with lids fastened by wingnuts (are there different sizes of pots?).

They are the same.

This is interesting, since wingnuts are typically used to lock down the lids of pressure cookers. Imperial Russian Army field kitchens cooked their stews under high-pressure steam. But steamed Japanese dishes are not made this way.

They are for boiling rice. A high-pressure is needed to boil rice.

I was mistaken in looking more at side dishes rather than the mainstay of white rice -- or rice with barley added, although troops disliked it.

(7) - Spigot(?), as for water, with one on each side. If for dispensing water, either hot or cold (?)

It is for hot water. Yesen Susjisha can be used as boiler vehicle as well.

I was not sure, but thought that the spigot was hot water because it was on top of the firebox. The Russian Army field kitchens reportedly served as water boilers too; the officers' model even had a teapot on its side.

-- Alan

[hisashi]

Would many or most of the commemorative saké bottles and cups date from 1930s, because of later wartime austerity? As noted earlier from author Kondō Hiroshi (Saké: a Drinker's Guide), production and quality of saké itself was lowered by the war.

In the peacetime, it was somewhat unlucky that one was drafted and it was a good news he finished his term safely. Then he, or maybe his parents also, bought small memorial presents to their friends, relatives and anybody they owe to. It seemed not very expensive. Perhaps professional militarymen did similar thing on thier mandatory retirement, but it was by far smaller in number than draftees.

The NASM caption is even more incorrect then. Tea ware like natsume seems a relatively fine thing. But actual rice bowls, such as an officer might buy –- were they usually something more ordinary, and less a fine item boxed like this?

The meaning of keeping a natsume on warship is that, he was even on the battlefield ready to held a tea party. Heijoshin ([keeping] ordinary sense) was considered as an essential feature of a good warrior. I feel keeping such a thing was a luxurious vainglory only allowed for high-rank officer who could claim more space on the warship.

[drewthefan123]

Drew, are you considering a scale model? One that can be disassembled to show inside?

Yes I am, unless someone provide me with some decent measurments. I will have to use a Swiss Army Field Kitchen as a ref. I just want to keep as accurate as possible.

The man I have working on it is very resourceful, and gifted in the trade of manufacturing odd ball items like this. It has been confirmed that construction will begin soon.

[Akira Takizawa]

Correction

"Yesen Suijisha" should be "Yasen Suijisha"

It's my typo.

Taki

[Peter H]

From ebay,seller nkyphotos.

"Ice-fishing"

[Peter H]

Same source

[Peter H]

From ebay,seller eby071

Miso soup being prepared
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miso_soup