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See enclosed site for one of the best photographs of a rolling kitchen that I have ever seen.
http://www.ironhorse129.com/rollingstoc ... ofalls.htm

Couvi

<i>"Cavalier san Cheval"</i>

That is a good photo of a rolling kitchen, and it is also a good photo of US troops in Russia.

This archived thread has some nice photos provided by Ari of the German type field kitchen in a Finnish museum, and it also has a nice photo of a rolling kitchen in France.

topic.asp?ARCHIVE=true&TOPIC_ID=924

Pat

A British Mk I Travelling Cooker being used by New Zealand troops.


Photograph courtesy of the Australian Military Memorial, www.awm.gov.au No reporduction authorized without permission of AWM


Pat

Col. Frank Tompkins had this to say about centralized cooking:

“Individualized cooking is a mistake. Better to dismount a man and use his horse to carry cooking outfit. When each man does his own cooking there is a waste of rations, sickness, and the horse suffers a certain amount of neglect that would not be the case when cooking is central. It also takes time that could be spent resting cleaning arms, overhauling equipment etc.”

(p. 235 “Chasing Villa”)

On p. 24 of this very interesting pdf file is a nice picture of the 10th Cav kitchen wagon and cooks:

http://138.27.35.32/history/PDFS/album1915-1929.pdf

Originally posted by Philip S
Col. Frank Tompkins had this to say about centralized cooking:

“Individualized cooking is a mistake. Better to dismount a man and use his horse to carry cooking outfit. When each man does his own cooking there is a waste of rations, sickness, and the horse suffers a certain amount of neglect that would not be the case when cooking is central. It also takes time that could be spent resting cleaning arms, overhauling equipment etc.”

(p. 235 “Chasing Villa”)

Very interesting, and quite accurate, point.

A lot of effort has gone into rations for soldiers over the years, far more than people suspect. I'd guess that nearly every soldier who served for several years in the 20th Century saw at least one attempt to improve the system. These traveling kitchens are really interesting, and pretty ingenious. I'll be they made up part of many cavalryman's most eagerly anticipated sites.

Pat

This is, according to the caption, a soldier with a cook's wagon, although he doesn't appear to be in uniform, if that information is correct. 1915 is the date of the photo:

http://memory.loc.gov/ndlpcoop/ichicdn/ ... 065265.jpg

Pat

http://editorial.gettyimages.com/source ... d=50556759

Horse is darned near camouflaged.

Pat

Pat

Somehow that doesn't look very appetizing. What are the guys in front doing? Are they cutting up chunks of meat? Look at the stains on the jacket of the guy serving the troops.
Dallas

Pat...
They are probably cutting up black bread. It was a major part of the ration.
Actually, the US Medical observer in the Russo-Japapnese War was so impressed with these mobile field kitchens that he strongly recommended they be adopted here. The Kaiser liked them so much he did introduce them in the German army.
According to our observer (I forget his name) Russian soldiers lived largely on black bread and soup made from whatever local ingrediants could be found. In Manchuria that included meat in the form of goats and sheep. Because virtually everything they ate was boiled or baked they had a very low incidence of food related sickness. If I remember correctly, something like 1/4 of what was considered acceptable in the US Army at the time.
The US doctor also advocated adopting the Russian Medical School Model which would literally put a promising student, regardless of background, through Medical School at the nations expense if he would serve 10 years (or some similar number) in the Army Medical Service. Since all doctors were automatically reserve medical officers regardless of whether they had been trained at the expense of the state this dosen't seem like such an onerous requirement.
Actually, I think we may now be doing such a thing. My ex-psuedo-stepdaughter (to complicated to explain) is now a Lt. in the Air Force and attending Medical School in NY...all at the governments expnse. I assume she's agreed to an appropriate term of service when she graduates.

Joe P

I wasn't aware these field kitchens predated the German ones. These look so much like them, I'd wondered if the Russians had adopted the German pattern.

Pat

We had them by WW1, and if you recall, we once had a participant who ran a museum in Finland that had their version

Joe

Originally posted by Joseph Sullivan
We had them by WW1, and if you recall, we once had a participant who ran a museum in Finland that had their version

Joe

Yes, and we had some photos of the Finnish version up. If I recall correctly, the Finnish version is a straight copy of the German one.

Pat

In 1900, the China Relief Expedition was conducted by the British, French, Italian, German, Austrian, Japanese and Russian troops. Since there was a great deal of development taking place at that time a great deal of effort was made to study the equipment used by other countries. Other countries marveled at the ability of American muleteers to control eight to ten mules by voice control alone. The Japanese packed on small stud horses. British and French pack saddles were considered better than the American Aparejo.

The only significant contribution to the knowledge base by the Russians was their field kitchen. It seems that they threw raw stuff into the top, it boiled continuously and food issued to the troops as soup through a faucet at the rear of the boiler. It was never cleaned and never emptied.

Couvi

<i>"Cavalier sans Cheval"</i>

Rolling Kitchens

During WWI, the American Army experimented with and adopted several models of rolling kitchens. Cooks could prepare meals in the field and provide hot chow without having to assemble a field kitchen from kits.

http://couvisblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/ ... chens.html

There was an entire line of vehicles, other than the ubiquitous escort wagons, which serviced the horse-mounted Army; such as: ambulances, buckboards, wagonettes, Dougherty wagons, dump carts, water sprinklers, oil sprinklers, horse ambulances and water tanks.

Couvi

<i>"Cavalier sans Cheval"</i>

Interesting. They look a lot different than the German and Russian ones.

Pat

Chile used the WWII German rolling kitchen up to a very late date (around the 60s I think). There is a nice example in the Army museum in Santiago.

Chile also invented a rolling water tank that used chlorine cilinders to clean the liquid.

Pontoon bridges on wagons were also used.

Originally posted by Pat Holscher

Originally posted by george seal
Chile used the WWII German rolling kitchen up to a very late date (around the 60s I think). There is a nice example in the Army museum in Santiago.

Chile also invented a rolling water tank that used chlorine cilinders to clean the liquid.

Pontoon bridges on wagons were also used.

Were the kitchens towed behind trucks in later years?

Pat

The only truck towed ones I've seen are modern ones. Again German made by Karcher (spelling?)