Do you remember "C" rations? If so, what was the worst and best?

OK lets hear from a former chow SGT. Any out there?
Heres my understanding and it may be wrong:
Class A rations: made from fresh ingrediants(good luck)
Class B: made from a combination of fresh and canned ingrediants.Most dining facilities use this.

Class C: ration,combat,individual.
K rations were WWII and into Korea.
D Rations-never exposed to them.
 
There was some unidentifiable meat mixed with noodles that was not too bad (not the spaghetti & meat-bad)
We had unlabeled cans, There was some kind of heater that the cooks put into GI cans full of water then threw in c rations, got the whole works hot, you went along (at appropriate intervals of course) and picked out a can or two of mystery.
Some people (?) would trade partial cans, mix many together, and claim great culinary success, not!
 
I was in the Army Reserve from 1958 through 1962. We were an arty untit and shot WWII vintage 8" howitzer ammo as well as M2 ball in our M1s dated about 1943.

C rats were of the same vintage also. I remember opening up a package that had green label Lucky Strike smokes in it. Now that dates them.

I also opened a package that contained a candy bar and maggots were enjoying it!
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Ok, best and worst. Everybody wanted beanie weenies and try to avoid corned beef hash.

Other items of the time were pound cake, peaches, fruit cake, scalloped potatoes and beef stew.

The one item I never saw used...as the directions called for...was the "hot chocolate".

One of the cans contained "accessory items". Among the items in this can was a hockey puck looking tablet of chocolate with direction to the effect of:..."place in canteen cup, pour hot water over it, stir and..."enjoy"!

I even tried going after one with a bayonet one time and that didn't even phase it.

To my knowledge, no one in the entire history of the U.S. Army was ever able to make hot chocolate out of that damn thing. I don't even think they would have made good clay birds for trap or skeet. You could have hit them dead on and the wouldn't break. They were harder than the hubs of hell!

I did see some cooks in a field kitchen once collect a large quantity of them, put them in a giant pot, cover with water and put on a stove, boiling... for a day.

It didn't make hot chocolate!
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The other usless item in the pack was the "biscuits". These were pale white, hard little "cookies" that were stack three or four deep as part of a can. They had all the attraction of eating bad carboard. I don't think anyone was ever able to get them down.

Other than that, they were wonderful.

crations_1945_375.jpg

Bon appetite.
 
In the early 70s I was with 2nd Armored at Ft Hood. Standing order was that all units would spend one week of each month in the field. I was there for almost two years. Yeah, I ate a bunch of C-Rats.
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Most of the ones we got were dated in the 1950s.
I kinda liked 'em. Or at least I didn't hate 'em. I considered them to be an acceptable meal. Even liked the ham and eggs. I'd eat the lima beans, but I'd say they were the ones I liked least.
Ah, but the fruit cocktail! That was the prize can everybody wanted. It was actually quite good!
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IIRC you looked for boxes marked "B2 Unit". Those were the ones with the canned fruit and the candy bar.
An 8V-71 Detriot Diesel engine would indeed warm up C-Rats very nicely.
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Anybody ever do the trick where you warmed up the coffee using the peanut butter?
 
Wish I could join in on this "C Rats" thread... my memory is getting bad...
but I remember some of the USMC food I ate out in Iwakuni and Kadena kept you pretty regular...
Hardly C Rats but have just spent two nights in an RAF Officers Mess and they do a darned good "Full Fry" cooked breakfast but you can't get a evening meal after 1830.

DCC
 
One other thing I hated about them - once commissioned I had to pay for them, and when in the field "they" (I think the Battalion S-1/PAC pukes) submitted paperwork so our BAS (Basic Subsistence Allowance) was suspended, we had to buy the things even if we didn't eat them. After every field exercise I ended up with a case or two of them.

Somone mentioned dumping the cans in hot water to heat them up, this was always done, as I recall, using immersion heaters in garbage cans. I, and many others, always enjoyed watching the cooks light the immersion heaters. The heaters had a fuel tank holding about a gallon of MOGAS, and dripped the gas on a burner plate in a submerged donut shaped heating chamber, at least as I recall. The cooks were supposed to light the heaters with a wick on a long metal rod; being Army cooks they preferred to turn up the fuel flow to max. and throw buring matches into the heaters, this usually worked, when it didn't the fumes would ignite, a big bang would be heard, and the cook would have his helmet or cap blown off and be covered in soot.

I think when we were in the field we were supposed to get one Class A/hot meal a day, and it was supposed to follow the "14 Day Menu", never did, the mess sergeants always screwed it up and we would have 4 hot meals one day then famine and C rats for three days. The mess sergeants I had also always screwed up the headcount sheets and cash collection sheets and I recall catching hell from the old man over that - my battery could displace 5 times in a day, execute perfect convoys, smooth day and night occupations, but God help you if the ration paperwork was screwed up.
 
I actually liked the spaghetti.
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Couldn't eat the eggs, the ham & mothers was OK, if I discarded the beans. But the best was when four or five guys dumped their entrees into an ammo can to be heated over a fire. Add about half a bottle of Tobasco and that's good eating!
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Being a 84 1/2 old WW2 vet,I've eating my share
of C ration's,when we got K ration's we were
eating a lot better.

Dick

This must be a old thread i`m 91 now.
 
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Roger all on the Eggs and Ham ... blech.

I can't believe nobody mentioned the John Wayne Bar (Choclate with toffee chips) -- Yum! I was also a spaghetti fan, best heated by placing on top of a M151's engine while travelling to staff meetings.

In the 80's at the Yakima Firing Center we had a USMC Tank Platoon attached to our Army infantry company, and the Marines where still issued C's, while we had been eating MREs for some time. I was surprised to see my troops, and me, trading our MRE's for the C's we'd all previously badmouthed. I guess variety is the spice of life.
 
my favorite was ham and MF'S - traded pound cake for Pall Mall Red(no filter) - still smoked em when came home - naturaly all were opened with:
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i ate them n the 60s but I dont really remember if the were good or bad,,I guess if they were bad I would remember that,,,seems to me i did like the crackers
 
Will5A1, I also fondly remember the immersion heaters. I've seen the cooks throw a match into one and have it blow that section of "stove pipe" coming out the top 50 feet straight up in the air.

It was not an unusual sound to wake up to to hear them heaters "blowing up" all over an encampment area!

Damn, those were the days!
 
I served from 81-89 so I Had both the c rats and mre'e. C rat favorite chicken or turkey loaf with melted caraway cheese and for desert pound cake and babyheads (apricots).Mre favorite Ham slices and all the deserts sucked. The worst c rat was beef and shrapnel(beef and potatoes) one side beef- one side potatoes and loaded with grease , desert chocolate choke roll. MRE's beef and spiced sauce and desert , the dam gorilla cookies that were welded together with the wax paper stuck in the middle
 
Sir, C-rats were largely a thing of the past when I was in, but we still got them occasionally. I didn't pay attention to when they were made; based on the "previous war" model, we just assumed they were Vietnam vintage. They didn't come with cigarettes.

The tuna was good, as were the "beef and rocks," but the beanies and weenies I could have done without. I don't recall ever getting ham and mothers, thank goodness. The pound cake was excellent, the fruit cocktail outstanding--far superior to the dehydrated styrofoam version in the early MREs.

I still carry my John Wayne on my keyring. That thing was the original multi-tool.

Hope this helps, and Semper Fi.

Ron H.
 
I went in 29 Jan, 1951. Had C & K rations left over from WW 2. Still carry on my key chain the P-38 can opener that came with my first box. It's Dated 1951 also. Don't know how mwny cans of beer it's opened. Gee Whiz, does that make it a collectors item? Only 58 years?Nawwww.
 
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