What Troops Ate On D-Day - World War 2 Meals & Rations

For more on recipes from the World Wars and other military cuisine, I got a whole playlist right here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIkaZtzr9JDkzso7Ip6ShAy…

My grandfather was crew member of a landing craft during WWII. He said before his first invasion, at North Africa, they were given a huge breakfast. Which he happily ate up. It was not long after the invasion started, that his breakfast come back up. After that, he did not eat much for breakfast before invasions.

"I decided I was unlikely to outlive my rations, so I saw no point in going hungry" Christ, that's dark. Glad he got the opportunity to write about it.

My grandfather was in the Navy but never learned to swim. Incredible. He saved many men who landed on sandbars, not realizing that they were not on solid ground. As they started walking, they would drop into the deeper water with 100 lbs in their backs. My Paw Paw dove in to save them. My wonderful, amazing grandfather learned how to swim that day.

My father served in the US Navy in WW2. He took part in the Normandy invasion. He was badly injured when a nearby shell's impact threw him through the air, feet first into a pile of sandbags. Both his legs were fractured. This I learned from my Mom, as he would never talk to us kids about any of his battle experiences. How long he laid on that beach in pain before he was found and taken to a hospital, no one will ever know now (he died in 1967 when I was not quite 16). But he would talk about his time in London before being deployed across the Channel. He said he liked Londoners and admired their spirit. He appreciated the way they all sang together in the pubs. He had a beautiful singing voice, so he would have been popular. He had eyes of a peculiar light yellowish green, which he said spooked a London barmaid so much she wouldn't serve him. "'E's got cat's eyes, 'e does!" He also told us how intensely green and beautiful the coast of Scotland was, where his overseas transport landed. He said it was the most beautiful place he'd ever seen. Bless them all, those who made it and those who didn't.

Years ago I saw a parody of Doctor Suess that starts: I do not like powdered eggs and ham. I do not like them Uncle Sam.

I knew a Marine who made several combat landings in the Pacific. They were usually fed steak and eggs and fried potatoes for breakfast on an assault day. He told me that the first time he ate like a horse, and lost it all halfway in over the side of the Higgins Boat. He said that later he ate the eggs and kept the steak in a waterproof bag for later on. He said that steak was like a reward for surviving the landing.

Had a moment of panic in the split second between "the last episode of Tasting History..." and "...that will be filmed in this kitchen"

I really appreciate the way you describe things! My brother is blind and he likes this sort of stuff but it's hard for him to enjoy videos since he lost his vision because most people don't do a good job with their descriptions of food or color and that sort of thing. You do! So thank you from the both of us!

My grandfather was a paratrooper in the 101st airborne, got dropped in a very wealthy couples back garden and was treated to beef stew, potatoes and bread within 10 minutes of landing and was found in the morning having wine, eggs french bread ham and cheese. He gave them a pack of candy he had brought to give children. His fellow paratroopers would send him forward to farm houses as he knew French and often could score hams and anything else the grateful French, Belgians or Dutch could spare. He said once "it wasn't strange to enter a French village and be shot and while you're in cover for some crazy old lady or young girl to run across the street from where you took fire from to hand you a bottle of wine"

"Utensil suitable for mixing eggs" sounds like the grandpa to the modern MRE's "Rock Or Something." Gotta love how vague you have to write when you have no clue where folks'll be when they read it.

My great grandfather was a Chindit. They were British commando's that fought against the Japanese army in Burma or Myanmar today during ww2 and are often called "the forgotten army" as they are sadly often overlooked and forgotten. They were also given K rations and something called a tropical chocolate bar for emergencies. K rations were designed to be used for short term use only and during combat operations as they didn't have enough nutrition and calories to keep a soldier fed for days on end. Problem was though they were commandos meaning they were behind enemy lines so getting fresh food and cooking was extremely difficult so the Chindits ended up eating K rations for months. Many of them lost up to 60lbs in weight. There are stories after the second campaign of British soldiers after being picked up by American soldiers being given more K rations for them to eat as picking up and feeding thousands of soldiers with cooked food is really difficult. Many British soldiers ended vomiting just on the mere sight of seeing the K rations again because they were so sick and tired of eating them.

It is crazy to me that you can research, source all the ingredients, get the recipe down pat and produce a video every single week. “Ok, it’s Tuesday so by the end of the day I need to learn and be able to remember everything about food in WW2”

And for thousands of these men, it was literally their last meal.

"Tilt your utensil while stirring" is the most Army instruction I have ever seen.

Thank you for this, Max. My dad was in WWI and Korea. He wouldn't talk much about it, but finally, in his 70s, he started telling the grandkids some stories. He didn't give cover the toughest stuff, but what he did share explained a lot about him that was hurtful and frustrating when I was growing up We owe our veterans so much better treatment that most of them have received, and at least as much as we have promised. Thank you for your service, veterans and for the sacrifices of you and your families.

Fun fact: while Char/Cha (茶) means tea in Chinese, "Tea" is also a Chinese origin word (Te) in a different Chinese language. Depended on how the tea trade was conducted in Ancient China, if the trade was to travel by land, it was called "Cha"; whereas if it was to travel by sea, it was called "Te".

At 15:50 the picture shown is of a man who was a great friend of mine in the later years of his life. That is Richard L. Barber originally from Worcester, MA and passed away in Oviedo, FL. Center of picture. A true hero who eventually rose to Sergeant and won 2 Purple Hearts in WWII and a 3rd in Korea where he lost a leg. Walked on a prosthetic leg for 65 years. RIP Richard

"Funny" family story -- my grandfather always told the family he wasn't at the landing, he always said he was there for "D-Day +1", the next day. We never had any reason to question this because he was a technical sergeant, the type meant to set up radio communications and repair things-- it always made sense to us that they'd need more people like that once the beaches and everything were properly secure. Long after he died, my grandmother was succumbing to dementia and we asked her about D-Day again, she said, "No, he was there the first evening" -- which as you can imagine confused the shit out of us, but apparently she and granddad had been lying to us our entire lives about it. It scarred him so badly they both agreed to lie. That's also when she admitted that they were so committed to the lie, they destroyed a lot, if not all of the letters they wrote to each other during the course of the war so we'd never find out the truth.

My grandfather was a Navy chef in the Pacific during WWII. There's a wonderful photo of him up on a ladder stirring an enormous bowl of pancake batter. This makes me feel close to him 🙂