Taste of War: World War II and the Battle for Food (108 page)

11. Japanese soldiers cooking their rations on Muchu Island, New Guinea, in September 1945. The Japanese army did not cook for its soldiers in field kitchens; instead each man lit a small fire and prepared his own meal.

12. After having been in action for a few days in the Sanananda area of Papua, during which they survived on a diet of bully beef and biscuits, these US troops are enjoying the opportunity to cook themselves a jungle stew using fresh food.

13. A badly emaciated Japanese soldier on Sandaken, North Borneo, awaiting transportation to a prisoner of war camp in October 1945. The American blockade of Japanese shipping meant that Japanese soldiers throughout the Pacific were left without food supplies, with devastating effect.

14. Japanese civilians approach some GIs who are lunching on K rations in Tokyo in August 1945. By the end of the war the Japanese urban population was teetering on the verge of starvation, and as this picture shows the townspeople grew vegetables amid the ruins in order to survive.

15. Australian naval personnel delighted by the soup, steak and onions, fresh peas, potatoes, bread and butter, strawberry ice cream and coffee piled up on their American mess trays. These Australians were discovering for themselves that the US military was the best fed in the world.

Notes

1. Introduction: War and Food

1
Stephens,
Monsoon Morning
, p. 184.

2
Furuta, ‘A survey of village conditions’, p. 237.

3
Adamovich and Granin,
A Book of the Blockade
, pp. 53, 31.

4
Ibid., p. 60.

5
Ellis,
The
World War II Databook
, pp. 253–4. Statistics for the Second World War are unreliable. The figure of 19.5 million military deaths is a lower estimate and it includes many soldiers who died of malnutrition, associated diseases and starvation while fighting. It does not include the many Chinese prisoners of the Japanese and Soviet prisoners in German hands who died of starvation while in captivity. The millions of civilians who died of starvation in Africa and Asia are frequently not included in civilian wartime casualty figures. If they are included then the figure of total deaths caused by the Second World War rises from about 50 to about 70 million.

6
‘More wealth, more meat. How China’s rise spells trouble’,
Guardian
, 30 May 2008; Naylor and Falcon, ‘Our daily bread’, p. 13.

7
Rosenberger, ‘The strategic importance of the world food supply’, n.p.

8
Naylor and Falcon, ‘Our daily bread’, p. 13.

9
Ibid., p. 16.

10
Ibid., p. 18; Timmer, ‘The threat of global food shortages’, n.p.

11
Rosenberger, ‘The strategic importance of the world food supply’, n.p.

12
Food and Agriculture Organization, ‘Assessment of the world food security and nutrition situation’, Committee on World Food Security, Thirty-fourth Session, Rome, 14–17 October 2008. Agenda Item II,
http//ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/meeting/014/k3175e.pdf
, p. 5.

13
‘Bread shortages, hunger and unrest’,
Guardian
, 27 May 2008.

14
Overy,
Russia’s War
, p. 134.

15
18,000 deaths between 1940 and 1942 are recorded as having been due to starvation but most of the victims of hunger will not have been counted. Roland,
Courage
, p. 102.

16
Voglis, ‘Surviving hunger’, p. 25.

17
Proctor,
The Nazi War on Cancer
, p. 171; Boog et al.,
Der Angriff
, p. 1019.

18
Levi,
If This Is a Man
, pp. 66–7, 79–80.

19
Simmons and Perlina,
Writing the Siege of Leningrad
, p. 59.

20
Magee, ‘Some effects of inanition’, pp. 55–7.

21
Magaeva, ‘Physiological and psychosomatic prerequisites for survival’, pp. 132–5.

22
Black,
A Cause for Our Times
, pp. 7–8; Voglis, ‘Surviving hunger’, pp. 22, 36–7.

23
Bacon,
The Gulag at War
, p. 139.

24
Frank,
Downfall
, p. 160.

25
Bix,
Hirohito
, p. 360.

26
Offer,
The First World War
, pp. 23–4.

27
Kravchenko,
I Chose Freedom
, p. 388.

28
Goldberg, ‘Intake and energy requirements’, p. 2096.

29
Vinen,
A History in Fragments
, p. 229.

30
Ellis,
The World War II Databook
, p. 253; Fujiwara,
Uejini shita eireitachi
, pp. 135–8.

31
White and Jacoby,
Thunder out of China
, pp. 169; Rummel,
China’s Bloody Century
, p. 118.

32
Greenough,
Prosperity and Misery
, p. 140.

33
Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System, Schedule A, Vol. 15, Case 305, pp. 44–5.

34
Ibid., pp. 45–6.

35
Davidson and Eastwood,
Human Nutrition
, p. 67.

36
Jean Legas, notes on wartime memories.

37
Davidson and Eastwood,
Human Nutrition
, p. 67; Lüdtke, ‘Hunger, Essens-“Genuß” und Politik’, pp. 122–3.

38
Davidson and Eastwood,
Human Nutrition
, p. 68.

39
Offer,
The First World War
, pp. 51–2.

40
Dörr,
“Wer die Zeit nicht miterlebt hat …”
, II, p. 27.

41
Rama and Narasimham, ‘The root crop and its uses’, p. 4663.

42
Grover,
Incidents in the Life of a B-25 Pilot
, n.p.

43
Ibid.; Potts and Potts,
Yanks
, p. 88; Wettlin,
Russian Road
, p. 87.

PART I FOOD – AN ENGINE OF WAR

2. Germany’s Quest for Empire

1
Kay,
Exploitation
, p. 80.

2
Eden,
The State of the Poor
, pp. 264–5; see also Davies,
The Case of Labourers in Husbandry
; Teuteberg,
Der Wandel der Nahrungsgewohnheiten
, pp. 66–7.

3
Ibid., p. 65; Davis,
Home Fires Burning
, p. 69. Modern Europeans now eat about 77 kilograms of meat per capita per year.

4
Turner,
About Myself
, pp. 45–7; see also Standish,
A Life Apart
, p. 78.

5
Trentmann, ‘Coping with shortage’, p. 15.

6
Tooze,
The Wages of Destruction
, p. 191; Belcham,
Industrialization and the Working Class
, pp. 207–9.

7
Offer,
The First World War
, pp. 3, 39–40, 168.

8
Belcham,
Industrialization and the Working Class
, p. 208; Offer,
The First World War
, pp. 100–101.

9
Teuteberg,
Der Wandel der Nahrungsgewohnheiten
, pp. 68, 131; Belcham,
Industrialization and the Working Class
, p. 208; Standish,
A Life Apart
, p. 81.

10
Trentmann, ‘Coping with shortage’, pp. 17–18.

11
Offer,
The First World War
, pp. 85–6.

12
Ibid., pp. 86, 90.

13
Trentmann, ‘Coping with shortage’, pp. 19–20.

14
Tracy,
Government and Agriculture
, p. 30.

15
Trentmann, ‘Coping with shortage’, p. 21.

16
Tracy,
Government and Agriculture
, pp. 20–21.

17
Offer,
The First World War
, pp. 86, 230, 324, 331.

18
Trentmann, ‘Coping with shortage’, p. 19.

19
Offer,
The First World War
, p. 331.

20
Ibid., p. 321.

21
Ibid., pp. 333–4; Zilliacus, ‘Economic and social causes of the war’, pp. 28–9; Fischer,
World Power
, pp. 17–19; Kershaw,
Hitler
, p. 79.

22
Offer,
The First World War
, pp. 270–1.

23
Davis and Engerman,
Naval Blockades
, p. 211.

24
Hernández-Sandoica and Moradiellos, ‘Spain and the Second World War’, p. 253.

25
Davis and Engerman,
Naval Blockades
, pp. 159, 173.

26
Vat,
The Atlantic Campaign
, p. 34.

27
Ibid., p. 13.

28
Offer,
The First World War
, pp. 366–7.

29
Davis and Engerman,
Naval Blockades
, p. 201.

30
Offer,
The First World War
, pp. 336–7; Vat,
The Atlantic Campaign
, p. 30.

31
Cited by Vincent,
The Politics of Hunger
, p. 45.