Picture
of a Field Kitchen
Trench Warfare
Everyday life in the trenches.
Soldiers in most armies complain about the food. The first World
War was certainly no exception, and living out in the cold and wet for
five years probably did make meals even less pleasant than they ought to
have been.
... It was time for breakfast and each section made its own little
fire. Charcoal was the official fuel, but supplies were few and far between.
Plundering for wood was a regular chore, but we never failed to produce
a fire, shivering [splintering] the wood with bayonets or jack knives to
reduce the smoke. Soon the pungent whiff-of bacon wafted around and life
seemed good when billycans were filled with a fresh brew of tea.
A different start to the day is described in the poem 'Breakfast' by Wilfred Gibson:
We ate our breakfast lying on our backs
Because the shells were screeching overhead..
I bet a rasher to a loaf of bread
That Hull United would beat Halifax
When Jimmy Stainthorpe played full-back instead of Billy Bradford.
Ginger raised his head
And cursed, and took the bet, and dropt back dead.
We ate our breakfast lying on our backs
Because the shells were screeching overhead.
Picture
of a Field Kitchen
Hot food was difficult to prepare near the front line. Water was often short. The standard rations were corned beef ('bully beef) and hard biscuits. A soldier remembered: Many times we had only one slice of bread for breakfast and biscuits for tea. these were so hard you bad to smash them with a stone.
Food was issued from field kitchens which were brought as close to the front as possible. Rum was often issued before the men took part in an attack.
The front line soldier could never be sure of a full supply of food. George Coppard says what it was like:
Sharing out the rations for a small unit was a bit of a lottery, especially where tins of jam, bully beef, pork and beans, butter and so on were concerned. So far as 1 know there were no hard and fast rules regarding the quantity of each type of ration a man was entitled to. The Army Service Corps were the main distributors, but how much food actually arrived in the trenches depended on such things as transport, the weather and enemy action. When casualties occurred the share-out was bigger, but only for a day or two ... Hard biscuits must have been torture for men with false teeth, who had to soak them in water. Wrapping loose rations such as tea, cheese and meat was not considered necessary, all being tipped into a sand- e bag, a ghastly mix-up resulting. In wet weather their condition was unbelievable and you could bet that the rats would get at them first. Maconochie, a 'dinner in a tin', was my favourite and 1 could 1 polish one off with gusto, but the usual share-out was one tin for four men. Tinned jam was an important part of our diet, and in the early days always seemed to be plum and apple, made by a firm named Tickler. It was not popular. All supplies of water had to be carried up the communication trenches to the front line. The water was treated with chloride of lime (to kill the germs in it) and was carried in petrol cans. It did not taste good.