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Field Kitchen ?


abn deuce

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not sure if this is a kitchen wagon or ?

444990321_c05bdf3fc4.jpg

French caption

Ce civil se fait à manger dans une "roulante" militaire de la guerre 14-18 à Sainte-Marguerite-de-Viette

babel translation not the best

This civilian is made eat in a " roulante" soldier of war 14-18 with Holy-Marguerite-of-Viette

Edited by abn deuce
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Theres an episode in Dad's Army where Pvts Pike and Fraser are using one to make porridge in during a Home Guard exercise. The Brit Army version was in use until the late 80's if I remember. Also they are used in the film Zulu at Rorkes Drift.

 

Baz.

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It is the type the Germans called a Goulashkannone. Rough translation a civillian comes to eat at a military travelling kitchen during the 14 18 war

 

Must have been 1984 Wor Lass and I (and infant daughter) visited Braunlage in the Harz Mountains, site of the 1936 Winter Olympics. A couple of years previously 15/19H had become the first regular army unit ever to exercise with armoured vehicles in the Harz Mountains National Park, at times in visible line of sight of the Brocken Soviet listening post just over the IGB, so our Voice Procedure and drills had to be spot on to avoid a real intelligence leak.

 

About February 1984 we took the cable car to the top of the mountain at Braunlage. The view from the top of the ski jump was breathtaking, not only because it was the top of the ski jump, but because the IGB was about 1500 metres away. As a serving soldier I was proscribed from entering a zone within 1km of the IGB as the Soviets would have decreed I was spying. From the top of the ski jump we could see where normal life stopped, then wire, then minefields then watch towers and nothing behing the IGB because anyone who lived closed enough had been moved away decades before. Truly this was the border with Communism embodied.

 

Previously, we had seen it on maps during that earlier exercise. Roads in the BRD continued up to the IGB and simply stopped at the ploughed minefield. Other side of the wire, the maps showed that some of these roads continued as footpaths (where they were of use to the Commies) until eventually 5Km behind the IGB, the footpaths became candystripes (minor roads shown on the map as red and white stripes) and only many miles behind the IGB did they revert to the status they had been this side of the IGB.

 

When I left the Army in 1989 (the Wall came down immediately after I left: clearly the Commies felt the danger was past) I was proscribed from visiting East Germany in perpetuity.

 

In June 1996 we took the Grand Tour, this time in the company of our 12-year-old son. We remained impressed by the ski jump at Braunlage, but I felt this desperate urge to visit the former DDR, so we followed the map in the direction of the Brocken. In fact I missed what had been the border (a humpback bridge over a narrow road) because all trace of the DRR had been erased from history.

 

We drove to the village below the Brocken. There were noticeable clear spaces which had once housed the Soviet Intelligence battalions who had manned the listening post, but when they left, they removed every last nut and bolt. What was left was a fairy-tale 1930s country village, picturesque beyond words.

 

But ... they may have been Commies for 50 years but they had always been German. Every other house had turned its garden into a car park to accommodate tourists and visitors to the funicular railway up to the top of the Brocken. Every other house had been turned into a souvenir shop. You may think that that it would be dirt cheap being former a former-Communist village? No. Like I said, they were Germans. Capitalism was in the blood and they had 50 years to make up for. It cost an arm and a leg. When I queried the cost to take a family of four up the Brocken, I was greeted with, "You could walk, but it's (something ridiculous like) 22km and very steep ..." We didn't bother with the Brocken. Neither did we bother with any souvenirs.

 

"BUT WHAT HAS ALL THIS GOT TO DO WITH FIELD KITCHENS?!?!?" I hear you ask.

 

I had clocked it on the way over, so on the way back, I stopped just east of the old border and we bought a drink from a stall, centred upon ... a real I-am genuine exactly as per the plastic 1/35th scale construction kit (Tamiya? Revell? Can't remember) Gulaschkanone or Goulash Cannon. Not something I'd expected to find, and in immaculate condition.

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  • 11 months later...

From the Life magazine site

Normandy Invasion

American soldiers, mostly Army Air Corps, aboard LCT (tank transport) ship check components of field kitchen as others secure rations while en route to beaches of Normandy for Allied invasion of France, aka D-Day.

Date taken:June 06, 1944Photographer:Frank Scherschel

 

aboardLCTjune6th.jpg

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  • 6 years later...

No! That is a No 1 burner, brought into service in 1939. But interesting to see American troops around it. My guess is that there were some Brits around as the No 1 burner was tricky to light (and full of petrol). Mind you, the ones I saw in use were probably 20 or 30 years old which may have had some affect on their performance.

 

Does anyone have the dimensions of the outer insulating container for the dixies shown on the burner rack. One of those is shown behind the left hand end of the burner rack, with a bucket on the top.

 

Chris

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the insulated box aka hay box was in use into the 80s with some units, a local shop used to have a pile of these on sale wonder if they have any left will need to go look. I have the metal containers, dixies with lids but no outers

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