WWII Army Air Corps Flight Combat Lunch

[texrdnec]

[steve1989]

It's a real treat getting to see the inside of one of these. Are those "flight bars" over on the left? The 3 bars...
Strange variety of components that require too much preparation. Imagine eating chicken & rice with tomato sauce, with a side of boulion soup, lemonade, Carters spread & crackers, coffee, and chewing gum up on a long flight... then of course those bars. Could be fruit bars. Oh and tea. Why not just a bunch of coffee, smokes, and candy bars?

Good to open it now before it rusts out from the inside. At least for this particular one. Give it 20 more years and it wouldn't look so hot inside.

[texrdnec]

Those are commercial 5 cent York caramels, same as found in Ks

[texrdnec]

the menu is pretty well toast but i can make out all but one word:

ARMY AIR FORCES FLIGHT LUNCH
MENU NO 1
BOUILLON
MEAT AND RICE WITH TOMATO SAUCE
BISCUITS AND BUTTER
COFFEE TEA LEMONADE
CARAMELS
FRUIT GUM CANDY
LOOK FOR A CAN OPENER IN
A SMALL ENVELOPE INSIDE? BOX

it lists caramels AND candy so maybe i'm missing a component

[texrdnec]

[ViperGTS]

Wow, very nice, jealous. I only have a repro air crew lunch
Gramps in his bomber suit....MSgt flight Engineer 8th/12th/15th AAF 301st Bombardment, 419th Squadron: 1942 to 45
https://www.301bg.com/Wagner_Joseph_W7893_301BG.cfm
Pic:

.
I did a quick vid here:
https://youtube.com/shorts/oh89VK-R9IA?feature=share

[steve1989]

Hey Viper,

I'll bet your grandfather had his fair share of those Flight Combat Lunches. I wonder how many special rations he got his hands on? Might have been such an everyday thing for him that he grew tired of the menu monotony and being away from a good home cooked meal.

The tomato paste... oof. Imagine putting that on instant rice and it's just room temperature. Wow - it would taste good if you're hungry though. Don't crack a tooth on that rice, best to soak it a good while... can figure at least. And why lemonade? And boulion which is just a salty seasoning to aid the chicken & rice... but you'd likely just want more coffee. Lemonade ... well it could be nice if you add all that sugar to it. That stuff is strong.

Here's a picture of one of those quartermaster conferences that display rations to educate the troops using them. They still do this with Natick bringing rations to Army bases to show soldiers who will eventually utilize the ration.
Anyway, in this picture, it is a tad off-focus. Sad.. a better resolution on those rations would have been fantastic to see. But alas, this one is sealed in time by a kinda blurry shot. You can still see the troop's patches and some relative detail to various special rations used back in 1944. The Flight Combat Lunch being one of them.

[texrdnec]

too bad about the focus but a great ration pic anyhow

[steve1989]

Looks like around 750,000 of them were produced in 1944 at $2.70 per ration.

Name changed from Combat Lunch to AAF Flight Lunch.

Original one had butter, c square biscuits, dehydrated beef and egg powder... ooof think of how rough that must've been to wash down with some lemonade. A recommendation for corned beef hash over the dehydrated beef was made early on. Not much better if eaten cold.

Spring of 1943 tests at Langley Field showed it could also be used for emergencies on the ground or at rest-refueling stops. That's pretty neat. Makes sense to utilize it on the ground - where it likely has a wider range of preparation and time to possibly cook up a nice makeshift meal.