NUTRITIONAL RECONDITIONING – THE INDIAN ARMY
If malnutrition became a problem among British and Australian troops after living on field rations for too long, among the troops recruited from the colonies army doctors and quartermasters were confronted by a far more deep-seated problem of endemic malnutrition. The Bechuanaland recruit, Robert Kgasa, recalled that quite a lot of the men who arrived at the training camp in Lobatsi were sick. However, a few weeks on an army diet transformed them. ‘Oh it was a change! All of those who looked elderly, in about three to nine months, they were young, and could even play football. Men would put on weight.’139 Selogwe Pilane, who was among the first intake of recruits, reported ‘we were fat and healthy by the time we left Botswana’.140
In India the problem required more than a few weeks of good food in a training camp. During the first Burma campaign in 1941–42 both British and Indian troops suffered from malnutrition and vitamin B deficiency. This was unsurprising given the disorganization of the supply lines and the chaos of the retreat. However, once the men were back at their bases on a remedial diet high in protein and protective foods, the Indian troops took far longer to recover, suggesting that they were already malnourished before the exigencies of the military campaign made them physically unwell. Part of the problem was the poverty of the ration allocated to the Indian troops. British soldiers in the Indian army did not receive a generous weekly ration, but their 16 ounces of bread, beef and milk, 8 ounces of vegetables, 10 ounces of potatoes and 4 ounces of onions, plus sugar, salt and tea was generous in comparison to the Indians’ miserly 24 ounces of atta (ground wheat for chappatis) or rice, 3 ounces of lentils, 2 ounces of potatoes and ghee (clarified butter for cooking), sugar and salt. In October 1942 the British troops were put on to full field service rations which provided a far more generous 4,500 calories a day, including significantly more bread, meat and milk. But the food shortages in India meant that the Indian government was reluctant to increase the food rations for Indian troops.141
By this time the Indian army had swollen by 2 million to around 3 million men. The military need for manpower meant that recruitment practices changed, and rather than concentrating on drawing men from the traditional ‘martial races’ in the north-west, the army enlisted men from all regions of the sub-continent. The economic situation in India was so dire that many artisans and labourers, who had been badly hit by the inflation of food prices, volunteered in search of regular pay and food.142 The rules were relaxed to allow men who were underweight to join the army. As a result, the army collected together a ragged assortment of men who clearly required ‘thorough nutritional reconditioning’ before they could be transformed into a fighting force.143 An anaemia investigation team was set up which fed the men on a variety of experimental diets and took regular measurements of their weight. Even on the meagre standard army ration the men gained 2–5 kilograms within four months of enlisting in the army.144 Despite the new recruits’ weight gain on the standard ration, malnutrition and vitamin deficiency diseases remained a problem across the army and it became clear to the medics that the ration system was desperately in need of reform, and that it was essential to introduce animal protein and protective foods into the Indian soldiers’ diet.
The commanding officers in the Indian army were, however, extremely reluctant to tamper with the ration scales. They were steeped in the old ways of the Raj, which scrupulously respected caste prejudices and food taboos. This outdated approach harked back to the shock of 1857 when a violation of dietary taboos was supposed to have sparked off a mutiny among Indian troops, who rose up against their officers and British rule.145 The exaggerated respect for food taboos resulted in a ration system which was divided into a formidable number of caste-appropriate diets. Hindus could not be served beef or Muslims pork, and both often ended up with rather tough goat meat. In addition, the British Indian army was joined on the sub-continent by American airmen, a small American infantry force known as Merrill’s Marauders, who trained two divisions of Chinese troops stuck in India after the retreat from Burma, and Middle Eastern and West and East African troops. The foreign troops required specialized foods such as mealie meal for the South Africans and burghal (a sort of lentil) for Trans-Jordanian troops.146 As a consequence, the Indian quartermaster became bogged down by an overly complex system which worked with 198 different ration scales.147 The various restrictions were printed on the backs of the ration forms in ‘microscopic type’, and during the audits the harassed food officials found themselves accused of over-provisioning because they had missed details such as that the issue of cans of meat and vegetables required a cut in the fresh vegetable ration.148
The prejudices of the old guard were finally overcome in 1943 when India began to mobilize for a push into Burma and south-east Asia. An Indian army catering corps was formed and the field service ration was improved. Mutton, carefully labelled as halal for the Muslims and jhatka for the Hindus and Sikhs, was introduced. Fresh vegetables, fruits and marmite, rich in vitamin B, were added to the menu. An emergency ration pack suitable for use by any Indian no matter what caste was developed, containing a chocolate bar fortified with vitamins which provided 1,350 calories. A twenty-four-hour operational 2,700-calorie ration contained biscuits, chocolate, cheese, a tin of sardines, sugar, milk powder, tea and salt. Eight-man composite ration packs provided a hearty 4,400 calories and incorporated tins of mutton.149 Like the British and the Commonwealth armies, the Indian army underwent a revolution in provisioning techniques which acknowledged the necessity of a ration which not only gave the soldier energy but also protected his health.
Britain and the Dominions ended the war with healthier populations and an expectation among the general population that the state was responsible for ensuring the health of its people. A similar process occurred within the British and Commonwealth armies. This co-operation between the state and scientists and, in the armies, between medics and quartermasters, allowed the discoveries of nutritional science to be applied to the diet of civilians and soldiers, with beneficial effect. These developments were extended into the post-war civilian and military culture. In 1944 the British Army Council decided to extend the life of the Army Catering Corps.150 It was no longer seen as a temporary answer to a wartime problem but as an integral part of the regular army. In Australia the work of Stanton Hicks was continued at a laboratory at Scottsdale in northern Tasmania, set up by the Australian Defence Science and Technology Organization to work on the application of food technology to the nutritional improvement of military rations.151 After independence the Indian army eventually set up its own Defence Food Research Laboratory at Mysore in 1961. Post-war soldiers throughout the world could expect their rations not only to be as flavoursome as possible under the circumstances but also to maintain their health. However, this apparently positive side-effect of war also helped to create a less constructive post-war view of eating as a means solely to achieve a narrowly defined idea of physical health.152 This has promoted nutritional scientists to a position of power over food choices in western societies which many would argue is beyond their capabilities. In the post-war world nutritionists have been allowed to define which foods are healthy or unhealthy and to dictate which foods people should and should not eat.
*An extraction rate of 70–75 per cent removes the bran and the wheat germ (containing fats and minerals). An extraction rate of 85–90 per cent removes only the bran and makes for a more nutritious, if browner, flour.
*Member of the Women’s Royal Naval Service
*Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes
*Commonwealth Scientifi c and Industrial Research Organization
17
The United States – Out of
Depression and into Abundance
The war gave a lot of people jobs. It led them to expect more than they had before … We were gonna reach the end of the rainbow.
(Peggy Terry, from Kentucky, who worked in a munitions factory in Michigan during the
war)1
When America fed us, men ate but couldn’t finish it all.
(Labour corps worker from Tanna, Vanuatu)2
‘How those dough boys do feed, porridge and cream and peaches, white bread and jam, pancakes, and syrup, and bacon and pukka coffee.’3 The newly liberated British prisoner of war, Eric Barrington, was treated to American hospitality when he managed to cross the Elbe river out of the Russian zone of Germany into the area held by the United States. ‘The sergeant brought out a parcel of cookies from home and the captain a pound box of chocolate creams … a packet of Camels was handed round and we were “gang” happy again.’4 Dinner was meat stew, mashed potatoes, sweet rice and stewed plums. ‘No wonder Yankee POWs miss their rations, a far cry from the bully biscuits’, which Barrington recalled were the predominant foods when he was fighting in North Africa.5
American soldiers were the best fed in the world during the Second World War. As the only country to experience an agricultural as well as an industrial boom, the United States was able to meet the food requirements of its 11.5 million servicemen with ease, and rationing in America had less impact on the structure and content of meals than in any other country. American soldiers and civilians alike consumed significantly more food than their allies or their enemies. But, if the United States was in an enviable position with regard to its military and economic strength, the government faced the problem that its people had little reason to fight. Lofty ideals such as freedom and democracy and the need to defeat fascism in its German and Japanese forms had little meaning on an everyday level for most Americans. At no point in the war were they fighting to defend their homeland from invasion, unlike the British and Soviets at the beginning of the conflict, or the Germans and Japanese at the end. The natural reluctance of the American government to interfere with the civil liberties of its citizens combined with this vague definition of war aims made it much harder for the US government to mobilize an army and impose restrictions on its civilian population. In the end, most Americans felt that they were fighting to preserve the American way of life and one of the most powerful symbols of this lifestyle came to be the abundance of American food. The superior rations which US troops and ordinary civilians received thus became a powerful signifier of American strength and superiority, not only for the Americans themselves but also for their allies and enemies.
THE ‘GOOD WAR’
In the early 1940s the effects of the Depression could still be seen in the American working population. Raging unemployment in the 1930s had swelled the numbers of the destitute and marginalized. America’s commitment to the philosophy of individualism meant that there was no welfare system in place to cushion the fall of the 15 million unemployed men and their families.6 Millions sold their possessions to make ends meet and millions more were evicted from their homes after failing to pay the rent. Hunger ravaged these families, and when unemployment was at its height in 1933 it became commonplace for people to collapse from hunger in the streets of Chicago.7 In 1941 Paul McNutt, director of the newly created Office of Defense Health and Welfare Services, claimed that as many as 45 million Americans ‘do not have enough to eat of the foods we know are essential to good health’.8 As preparations for war got under way, the head of the Draft Board, Lewis B. Hershey, asserted that two out of every five men called up were unfit for military service due to disabilities which were linked to poor nutrition. The Surgeon-General, Thomas Parran, warned that poor health due to poor diet would not only pose a threat to the country’s military strength but would also slow down industrial production and lower ‘the morale of millions’.9
The Second World War lifted the United States out of the Depression and into a period of economic boom.10 The growth in the war industries brought an end to the plague of unemployment, and between 1941 and 1944 the lowest-earning families doubled their wages.11 Helen Studer and her husband had been hard hit by the Depression. Their hog-raising business collapsed and the only work her husband was able to find was digging ditches for pipes in Colorado, where the family lived in a tent. When the war came she and her husband moved to California and they both found work in the Douglas aircraft factory. ‘People didn’t know what to do with their money when they were making so much. ’Course I came from the ridiculous to the sublime, ’cause we went through a depression in the thirties and we were in debt when we came out here. Between my husband and I, within a year we were out of debt.’12 Helen Studer’s story was replicated across the United States. During the war, Peggy Terry from Paducah, Kentucky, first found work in a shell factory close to home and then moved to Michigan to work in a factory testing aeroplane radios. Her wage increased from $32 to $90. ‘We had a lotta good times and we had money and we had food on the table and the rent was paid. Which had never happened to us before.’13
It was this growth in prosperity which earned the Second World War the title ‘the good war’ in the United States. Lee Ormont, who had a partnership in a supermarket chain, acknowledged, ‘Those of us who lost nobody at the front had a pretty good time … We suddenly found ourselves relatively prosperous. We really didn’t suffer.’14 The rise in wages had an extremely beneficial impact on the nutritional well-being of the working classes. American workers now had the means to eat well. The war did not redistribute American wealth. In fact, the income gap between rich and poor widened, but wage increases had the same levelling-up effect as in Britain and the dietary gap between the rich and poor began to close. Before the war the richest third of the American population had spent double the amount that the poorest third spent on food. In 1944 the rich were spending only a third more on food than the poor.15
In particular, the working classes increased their consumption of the protective foods – meat, dairy products, fruit and vegetables – which had been under-represented in their pre-war diet. The animal protein gap between the classes was narrowed as the working classes increased their consumption of meat by 17 per cent, while the wealthiest section of society ate 4 per cent less.16 ‘Customers, who have never enjoyed the luxury of club steaks, are now requesting them in five-pound cuts for roasts’, reported the manager of the Great Eastern supermarket chain.17 In 1948 a survey of urban families found that three-quarters of them were consuming the recommended amount of calcium compared with one-half in the spring of 1942, and only one-third in 1936.18 The 20 million Victory Gardens that were planted across America added interesting new tastes and vitamins to working-class menus.19 Salads, squash and baked aubergine all found their way into the dishes of people used to a more conservative diet. In Mississippi, two-thirds of the new foods which people discovered during the war were vegetables, mainly home grown.20 In 1943 a team surveying the diets of New York schoolchildren were pleasantly surprised to find that the children were now eating not only fresh fruit, but also green vegetables such as spinach. A survey of 400 Texan families from all sections of society showed them to be eating more milk, eggs and butter and twice as many green vegetables than in 1927–29 when a similar survey had been conducted.21
As in Britain, many Americans ate a healthier diet during the war than they had done in the 1930s. In contrast to the British, they also ate more. The supermarket owner Lee Ormont recalled that people ‘splurged on food’.22 With the shortage of consumer goods and strict petrol rationing, there was little else to buy. While the British reduced their expenditure on food by about 11 per cent, in America expenditure on food increased by 8 per cent and rationing had to be introduced in order to restrict civilian consumption of high-quality and condensed foods which were needed by the military and America’s allies.23 More than half the supply of some foodstuffs and a large proportion of the best-quality food disappeared into the storehouses of the military quartermasters. In addition, large amounts of canned foods, especially canned meats, had to be withheld from the American public so that the United States could honour its commitment to supply lend-lease food to its British, Soviet and Chinese allies.24 By 1943 sugar, sweets, coffee, butter, cheese, canned goo
ds, frozen and dried vegetables and fruits, and red meat were all rationed.
The United States government exhibited a characteristically laissez-faire approach to the mobilization of the economy and society for war. The energies of private business and industry were harnessed, but they were not brought under direct government control. William Knusden, head of the Office of Production Management, initiated the redirection of industry into the construction of military equipment simply by calling together America’s leading businessmen and presenting them with a list of military requirements which they then volunteered to supply.25 Secretary for War Henry Stimson summed up the approach: ‘If you are going to try to go to war … in a capitalist country you have got to let business make money out of the process, or business won’t work.’26 This strategy was remarkably successful in a climate in which businessmen disliked being told what to do but presided over an industry with ‘widespread experience of mass-production … great depth of technical and organisational skill, the willingness to “think big”, [and an] ethos of hustling competition’.27 When the United States entered the war its economy was still essentially geared to civilian production, and military expenditure was minimal.28 But by the end of 1942 America had developed a military economy which out-produced the Axis, and by the end of the four years of war America had doubled its industrial production. ‘Two-thirds of all the Allied military equipment produced during the war’ was manufactured in America.29
The Taste of War: World War II and the Battle for Food Page 51
