Potentially Stupid Science/Engineering Question

MIflyer said:

You would have preferred, perhaps, Meals Rejected By Ethiopia?

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My first tour we had to eat one a day for lunch, because the chow hall was too far from the flightline and our upload schedule was too busy anyway. My favorite MREs of the time were chicken a la king and beef stew. Both tasted pretty good and didn't go through me like the Wehrmacht through France. I preferred both to the salted grease that is Spam.

To continue off thread, I am reminded of an incident in one of my books, I think it was concerning Gen. Kenney. A B-24 had arrived in a thunderstorm while the troops were standing in the rain in the chow line. As the newly arrived pilot and copilot walked towards the front of the line, from the middle of the line came a voice ordering the two to the back of the line. It was Gen. Kenney in line, in the rain, with his men.

Thumpalumpacus said:

Not sure why the Navy would store milk in walkways, but hey, them Navy guys are a little odd.

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Who said milk was ever stored in passageways? Only so much space in the reefers, usually for high protein meat needed to keep a large crew effective, so milk was at bottom of list, behind more space efficient cheese.
The Navy was smart enough to only store non-perishable foodstuffs in refrigerated spaces, and even then, many ships operating off Vietnam were of WWII vintage w/o air conditioning.
In my quarter century as an AF brat and in Navy service, I concluded the most wasteful service is the Air Force, with Army not far behind, and then a big gulf of efficiency to the Navy, then Marines, and most resourceful Coast Guard.

As a descriptive word "steel" is hardly more informative than "metal". A steel is an alloy of Iron and Carbon. Some steels have as low as 0.05% Carbon, most I worked on had around 0.1% however they are still steels because other elements like Manganese Chromium Vanadium and Titanium are combined in a formula to calculate the "Carbon Equivalent" to determine the actual properties. However I worked on Super Duplex stainless steels which had 25%Chromium and 5% Copper in them. The difference between the properties of all the steels available is vast.

pbehn said:

The difference between the properties of all the steels available is vast.

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As is true with Aluminum, Inconel, etc.

MIflyer said:

I am quite sure that in WW2 Spam would have been received with the same joy as manna from heaven in much of the world, even if provided every day. One of the negative aspects of reading about aircrew escape and evasion in WW2 is that it is bad for your diet. Food was a obsession for escaped POWs and evading aircrew. Each nearly decent meal is recalled and recounted in detail. Food was not a trivial problem even for civilians in places like France, Belgium, Holland, etc. So reading about it makes you hungry.

As for Spam, I discovered the pleasures of it when cooked in a pan like bacon. Then one evening in 1979 I made a meal of it and shortly thereafter came own with a case of the stomach flu, which a friend of mine had contracted earlier that day. And I never ate Spam again. I know I was not the Spam that made me sick, but tasting it the second time around, in reverse,. finished me with the stuff.

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The German occupiers of the Netherlands caused a famine in 1944-45 that killed something around 20,000 people. Spam would probably be quite happily received.

swampyankee said:

The German occupiers of the Netherlands caused a famine in 1944-45 that killed something around 20,000 people. Spam would probably be quite happily received.

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My thoughts exactly! I recall reading that the Germans agreed to allow Allied aircraft to drop supplies there. The same could no doubt be said of the Polish uprising in Warsaw and any POW camp or Concentration camp in Europe or the Far East.

fannum said:

Who said milk was ever stored in passageways?

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fannum said:

When you could walk down a passageway without tripping over boxes, you knew there was no more milk, eggs or veggies that didn't come in a box or can.

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swampyankee said:

The German occupiers of the Netherlands caused a famine in 1944-45 that killed something around 20,000 people. Spam would probably be quite happily received.

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That is not the whole truth.
Allies shot at all that moved including the one carrying food. Blew bridges, attacked anything.
I know of a family member that was in a train and was attacked by the RAF. Much death and no military target as such.

Lot of gear blown to pieces but that had a down side. It was not a german plan to starve so many if any. They simply could not transport enough besides feeding their fighting force.

One could argue that denial of transport by the Allies caused a lot of this. Certainly around Den Haag and other locations where v-2 where fired from. Look up Bombing of the Bezuidenhout - Wikipedia to get a feel for the situation

War is far from simple. And in the end it is simpler to blame the ones that lost.

Considering what the Nazis did, there is PLENTY of blame to assign to them. Not all Nazis were monsters of the Concentration Camps, nor were they all SS people. The average German solider was just that, a soldier doing his duty as he saw it, and joined the Nazi party, if he did, so he and his family could get food. By 1943, if you were NOT in the party, you didn't get food or other rations.

After years of war, and casualties that were caused by the war, yes, the Allies attacked anything that moved until the war stopped and there was an official surrender. I tend to believe the root cause of the war was the Treaty of Versailles and that, without it, Hitler would never have come to power. Regardless, the Allies were taking no chances on more casualties based on some hoped-for goodwill and a desire to end the war from retreating German troops. They still had ammunition and still used it when encounters happened.

Sure, there is always a story from the other side about how it really was, and many, if not most, are true. The average German didn't start the war, likely didn't WANT the war, and had no say in anything concerning the war. He or she was likely just trying to eat every day due to the poverty created by the Treaty of Versailles ... none of which stopped the war from beginning a few minutes early on 1 Sep 1939.

GregP said:

a soldier doing his duty as he saw it, and joined the Nazi party, if he did, so he and his family could get food. By 1943, if you were NOT in the party, you didn't get food or other rations.

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I don't believe it was ever that extreme. Happy to be corrected but I am pretty sure non-NAZI party Germans were not denied food.

GregP said:

Considering what the Nazis did, there is PLENTY of blame to assign to them. Not all Nazis were monsters of the Concentration Camps, nor were they all SS people. The average German solider was just that, a soldier doing his duty as he saw it, and joined the Nazi party, if he did, so he and his family could get food. By 1943, if you were NOT in the party, you didn't get food or other rations.

After years of war, and casualties that were caused by the war, yes, the Allies attacked anything that moved until the war stopped and there was an official surrender. I tend to believe the root cause of the war was the Treaty of Versailles and that, without it, Hitler would never have come to power. Regardless, the Allies were taking no chances on more casualties based on some hoped-for goodwill and a desire to end the war from retreating German troops. They still had ammunition and still used it when encounters happened.

Sure, there is always a story from the other side about how it really was, and many, if not most, are true. The average German didn't start the war, likely didn't WANT the war, and had no say in anything concerning the war. He or she was likely just trying to eat every day due to the poverty created by the Treaty of Versailles ... none of which stopped the war from beginning a few minutes early on 1 Sep 1939.

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There were 8.5 million Nazi party members in Germany in 1945, Germany's population was almost 80 million.
Looks like a lot Germans volunteered to starve.
Nor were you required to join the Nazi party if you were in the military.

Germany in 1871 had a population of around 41 million, in 1913 67 million, in 1939 it was 69.5 million in the 1937 borders and around 80 million in "Greater Germany". The area of Poland designated the Ostgau in 1939 could just generate a small surplus, about enough to feed 650,000 people at a time Germany controlled 112 million people. The rest of occupied Poland could feed itself. Germany at the time was 83% self sufficient in food. Greater Germany 98%. Getting rid of Nazi defined undesirables helped the food situation a little, as did putting those in the ghettos on reduced rations. Imports from and via the USSR helped in 1940/1941 as did imports via the French Mediterranean ports in 1941/42.

Germany charged occupied countries a fee to maintain the occupying army, paid in kind including food. Even Holland and Belgium, which were very food deficient, were billed 176,000 tons of grains 1940 to 1944. The Dutch were billed 35,000 tons of meat, 180,000 tons of potatoes and 313,000 tons of vegetables in the 1941/42 financial year. Note this does not include animal fodder, around 2,000,000 tons of hay, oats and straw from France alone by the end of January 1942, yes 1942, add 6,500,000 cubic metres of firewood and sawn timber, 222,000 tons of meat, 130,000 tons of fruit and vegetables again all by 31 January 1942.

The Germans took grain from where ever it could be obtained, either for Germany or to feed the occupation troops, in the 1940 to 1944 period 3.8 million tons from France and in the period 17 July 1941 to 31 March 1944 1.76 million tons from the USSR to Germany, a further 4.05 million tons from the USSR to feed German troops and an additional 3.34 million tons requisitioned for the German civil administration in the USSR which at least fed locals working for the administration. Apparently the grains taken from the USSR represented around 10% of the grain available to the Germans during the time period.

Up until the end of 1944 the food situation in Germany was good, better than the rest of Europe thanks to systematic requisitioning of food from outside Germany, this stopped as the German armies retreated. It was still the case when the allies entered Germany in 1945 they found the healthiest population in Europe and what looked like reasonably stocked larders. As it turned out the German diet was going downhill rapidly and stocks were very low. Pre war the average German caloric allocation was 3000 calories. This had dropped to 2078 calories in the 1942/3 (ration periods 41-53), then 1981 calories 1943/4 (ration periods 54-66), then 1671 calories 1944/5 (ration periods 67-79) then 1412 calories 1945/6 (ration periods 80-92). In January 1945 the German ration fell to 1625 calories, by April it was 1,220 calories and May in the Ruhr less than 1,000 calories. In April 1945 there was only a 10 day supply of food in the major German cities, Dusseldorf and Essen reported starving children, food stocks had been looted. Others into fuel. However even In the middle of the year food stocks in small cities and towns were good. 21st Army group came to the conclusion the British sector needed 2,000,000 tons of wheat for the year September 1945 to August 1946 or in other words the entire 1945 UK wheat crop.

According to Allied Administration of Italy 1943-45 by C R S Harris, between July 1943 and September 1945 the allies imported 2,464,100 tons of food for Italy, plus 3,291,200 tons of coal, in partial return the Italians exported around 2,000,000 pounds sterling of food, about half lemons or lemon oil. During this period the allied armies bought about 300,000 tons of food from the Italians. A lack of transport prevented full gathering of the harvest in 1943 and 1944 and distribution of seed in 1945.

The fact the allies ended up with a major Belgian margarine factory in 1944 helped the Belgians, margins were really that tight. In late 1944 the allied civil affairs officials conclude France would need around 500,000 tons of food a month in the April to September 1945 period with Belgium and Holland having higher per capita requirements. These cannot be met thanks to the world wide food shortage, claims of other theatres, shipping shortages and port congestion. Belgium was assessed as needing 80,000 tons of food a month in early 1945, the situation was in Q1/44 the ration was 1,470 calories (versus 2,000 in Germany), it dropped to 1,200 calories during 1944, in Q4/44, after liberation the ration was 1450 calories if coupons were honoured, and they were often not. By June 1945 the ration was 2,000 calories.

Rations in Paris were 800 calories in August 1944, it seems the Germans had been taking 50% of French food production. In September the allies had that up to 1,210 calories, and 1,515 calories in May 1945. The average French 14 year old in 1945 was 7 to 9 Kg and 7 to 11 cm shorter than the 14 year olds on 1935. In 1944 as the US starts to hire French labour it finds "Labour was plentiful, though rendered inefficient by malnutrition." From the histories on the fourth republic, pre war France imported round 10% of its food needs. By the end of 1944 France was running out of food, and put down a requirement of 1,000,000 tons of foods and fats over the next 8 months for the civilian population, along with 2,500,000 tons of coal and 800,000 tons of petroleum products. During the war some 3,000,000 acres had gone out of cultivation. With industry largely not working, most of the new machine tools had been looted, only 20% of the necessary spare parts for agricultural machinery were available, then add fuel shortages. German requisitions had seen the horse population reduced from 2.2 million to 1.5 million.

Norway in 1945, once they stopped the 100% of the fish catch going to Germany (and coped with the resultant malnutrition) was acceptable, they could use German Army stocks as well, but still needed some 66,000 tons of food in the first 6 months of liberation.

Denmark was a food exporter, once the allies could remove the German army and put a clamp on weapons, and provided it could receive enough coal.

In late September 1944 in retaliation for Dutch support of allied operation the Germans placed an embargo on food shipments to western Holland, lasted as a full one for 3 weeks and a partial one for another 3 weeks. This ran down stocks and switched much supply to the black market. The Dutch under German occupation were on 500 calories a day in December 1944. The winter froze many rivers and canals, stopping that form of transport, German destruction and allied bombing further reduced transport capacity. Gas and heating was turned off, local coal fields were in allied hands. Flour had arrived from Sweden in January 1945, not offloaded and distributed until March. Western Holland was where most of the deaths occurred. Pre war population around 8,600,000 with 4,500,000 affected by famine, 22,000 died. The German army in Holland was supplied, the Nazi officials running the country had food. The Germans on the border were not starving, the Dutch across the border had malnutrition, further west came starvation. There was around 100 miles of the Holland/German border still in German hands with the communication links.

Apart from Holland WWII saw famine in Greece (300,000 dead), China, Bengal and Indo China.

The Neo Nazi explanation for Bergen-Belsen is the allied air forces cut off all food supplies, giving the wonderful caring guards an impossible dilemma. The way the nearby German civilians had plenty of food is ignored.

The German Navy discouraged its personnel from joining the Nazi party. While the Versailles treaty was a rallying point in German politics the depression created a surge in Nazi support, one that was waning as Hitler seized power. Despite the guns and butter claims by the Nazi government German standard of living fell during the 1930's, consumer goods making way for war production, autarky progams pushing up prices. The Nazis noted it was Chamberlain who was cheered at Munich had how silent the Berlin etc. crowds were on 3 September 1939.

The Japanese made a bigger mess of Asian food production than the Nazis did in Europe.

On a different note sometime in 1944/45 two ensigns tried to jump the on ship queue for ice creams only to discover Admiral Halsey was in the queue.

In northern part of French Indochina (Tonkin), during the Japanese occupation, in 1945, a combinaison of forced food requisitions, notably rice, floods, dryness, parasites infestation and transports disorganisation, due to Allied bombing originated in a food shortage generating an estimated mortality between 1 000 000 and 2 000 000 deads.

tyrodtom said:

There were 8.5 million Nazi party members in Germany in 1945, Germany's population was almost 80 million.

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I understand that Austria had a higher percentage of Nazi party members than did Germany. I guess when the anshluss occurred some Austrians decided they needed to prove their loyalty. Except for my Jr High music teacher, who escaped with her family over the Alps into Switzerland.
Tell me, do you think we sung the music from "The Sound of Music" very much?

GTX said:

I don't believe it was ever that extreme. Happy to be corrected but I am pretty sure non-NAZI party Germans were not denied food.

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A very good friend of mine was married to a German girl. At the end of the war, she was a 16-year old airplane spotter who sat in a wood tower and called in airplanes when she saw them. She called in number, direction, and her speed estimate.

According to her, if you weren't a party member by mid-1943, you didn't get a food allotment going forward. She was there and had many observations that someone who was not there would not even think of.

Later, I spoke with another person who was also there, who said the same thing, without ever hearing it first from me.

I have no dog in this hunt and was not there. In reality, I don't know. Two people who WERE there said so. It's good enough for me, likely not good enough for a history volume, but good enough for a post.

GregP said:

A very good friend of mine was married to a German girl. At the end of the war, she was a 16-year old airplane spotter who sat in a wood tower and called in airplanes when she saw them. She called in number, direction, and her speed estimate.

According to her, if you weren't a party member by mid-1943, you didn't get a food allotment going forward. She was there and had many observations that someone who was not there would not even think of.

Later, I spoke with another person who was also there, who said the same thing, without ever hearing it first from me.

I have no dog in this hunt and was not there. In reality, I don't know. Two people who WERE there said so. It's good enough for me, likely not good enough for a history volume, but good enough for a post.

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Non-Nazis were not starved. Even the Jews working in the tunnels building V-2s and Me-262s were fed. It's sort of a thing you have to do in order to keep people alive and your economy therefore working.

Nazi party membership by 1945 was only just over 8 million in a country of 70 million German citizens. How did the other 62 million stay alive?

I'm not buying this at all.

GregP said:

A very good friend of mine was married to a German girl. At the end of the war, she was a 16-year old airplane spotter who sat in a wood tower and called in airplanes when she saw them. She called in number, direction, and her speed estimate.

According to her, if you weren't a party member by mid-1943, you didn't get a food allotment going forward. She was there and had many observations that someone who was not there would not even think of.

Later, I spoke with another person who was also there, who said the same thing, without ever hearing it first from me.

I have no dog in this hunt and was not there. In reality, I don't know. Two people who WERE there said so. It's good enough for me, likely not good enough for a history volume, but good enough for a post.

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If what you say is true, why didn't the Nazi party have more members?
80 million with Germany and Austria. If that population breaks down like most, about half are female, then break down how many are 18 and above, maybe 35 to maybe 40 million adult men and women.

Women joined the Nazi party too, but not in the numbers men did. So out of maybe 35 million adult men and women, only 8.1 million people joined the Nazi party.
We've went thru this discussion before Greg, how do you explain if what your acquaintances tell you was true, then why did not even 1 in 4 join the party? I've posed the same question to you before, you've ignored it .

I was in Germany from late 1971 till mid 73.
Met many Germans, a lot of the WW2 generation.
Some didn't want to discuss it, some denied knowing anything, some thought they done nothing wrong, some admitted they knew, but looked the other way. Some even were still, not Nazi, but thought what the Nazi's did, was something that needed done.
But not one had the audacity to tell me they joined the Nazi party to keep from starving.

I've been to Dachau.

I remember one of the bar owners in Wildflecken village, his name was Alois, but he wanted us to call him Alice.
He fought in Russia, and didn't return till the late 40's, he hated the Ruskies still.
But I do remember him saying he and the men with him fought to the last because they knew what they had done to the Russians, was going to be done to Germany. That he was going to die fighting and not have to face the future, that's just not the way it went.
He didn't talk much about it, probably because he thought nobody would understand.

One of my best racing friend's mother was a German his father had married while in the Army in the late 40's.
He would visit his mother's family in German during summer vacation, and eventually his grandmother moved to the states late in her life.
My friend, Chris, knowing my interest in WW2 history warned me not to ask his nana about Mr. Hitler, because I wouldn't like what she had to say. His grandfather on his mother's side had been a NCO in the Luftwaffe.
But still had some interesting conversations with his mother, and him.

But none of these people, Alice, Chris's mother, grandmother, or grandfather had ever been members of the Nazi party.

tyrodtom said:

If what you say is true, why didn't the Nazi party have more members?
80 million with Germany and Austria. If that population breaks down like most, about half are female, then break down how many are 18 and above, maybe 35 to maybe 40 million adult men and women.

Women joined the Nazi party too, but not in the numbers men did. So out of maybe 35 million adult men and women, only 8.1 million people joined the Nazi party.
We've went thru this discussion before Greg, how do you explain if what your acquaintances tell you was true, then why did not even 1 in 4 join the party? I've posed the same question to you before, you've ignored it .

I was in Germany from late 1971 till mid 73.
Met many Germans, a lot of the WW2 generation.
Some didn't want to discuss it, some denied knowing anything, some thought they done nothing wrong, some admitted they knew, but looked the other way. Some even were still, not Nazi, but thought what the Nazi's did, was something that needed done.
But not one had the audacity to tell me they joined the Nazi party to keep from starving.

I've been to Dachau.

I remember one of the bar owners in Wildflecken village, his name was Alois, but he wanted us to call him Alice.
He fought in Russia, and didn't return till the late 40's, he hated the Ruskies still.
But I do remember him saying he and the men with him fought to the last because they knew what they had done to the Russians, was going to be done to Germany. That he was going to die fighting and not have to face the future, that's just not the way it went.
He didn't talk much about it, probably because he thought nobody would understand.

One of my best racing friend's mother was a German his father had married while in the Army in the late 40's.
He would visit his mother's family in German during summer vacation, and eventually his grandmother moved to the states late in her life.
My friend, Chris, knowing my interest in WW2 history warned me not to ask his nana about Mr. Hitler, because I wouldn't like what she had to say. His grandfather on his mother's side had been a NCO in the Luftwaffe.
But still had some interesting conversations with his mother, and him.

But none of these people, Alice, Chris's mother, grandmother, or grandfather had ever been members of the Nazi party.

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... and somehow they maintained caloric intake suitable for survival.

I have mentioned my elderly German born friend in a couple of other posts (his name was Paul Bode). He died recently at the age of 99, so I cannot ask him for clarification, but a couple of times he mentioned something to me that might apply to the food allotment question.

He lived in the lowlands farming area so they never had a problem with having enough food as such, and he was not a member of the Nazi party. But, he did mention that after around mid-1943 they had problems getting any kind of luxury goods, and in some cases foods that were not produced locally. Apparently party members did not have this problem until toward the end of the war.

Maybe this is what is being referred to?