1943 series C-Rations were our staple fare from August 1968 to March 1969 when the 1968 series replaced them. At times we had meals from our Battery Mess and often we did not. We operated 24 hours per day as did hunger, so if you got the munchies outside the meal periods your options were few. CARE PACKAGES from family, friends and womens social organizations (THANK YOU! You know who you are.) provided food with taste variation but Cs made up 90% of snack food. The Vietnamese were so poor they had little food to sell or donate to the allied cause.

13 basic meals were the total menu choices in the 1943 version. Each package had one, and other items from the list below and an accessory package. All meals and items are listed below the pizza recipe. All ingredients for C-Ration pizza except the Mc.Iihenny Tabasco Sauce are taken from C-Ration boxes. The maker of tabasco sauce sold a C-Ration cookbook and a bottle of sauce, delivered in Vietnam for $5. They made me a lifelong user of Tabasco.

I am sure the recipe below is partly theirs and partly our adapting.

Ingredients
3 full biscuit cans
1 spiced beef/sauce
1 semi-soft cheese
1 empty C-Ration box
1 toilet paper pack
1 book of matches
1 plastic spoon
1 P-38 can opener

Open all 5 cans with the P-38 leaving the lids slightly attached on 2 biscuit cans. Use the removed lid to cut 4 thin slices from the biscuit, toss the unused biscuits. Put 1 slice on the bottom of the 2 cans with attached lids. Use the plastic spoon to remove the beef and cheese to the third biscuit can, add Tabasco and mix briskly. Put half of the mix on each biscuit slice, add the other slice on top and fold the lid to the closed position.

Crumple the toilet paper and stuff it inside the C-Ration box, put the pizza cans on the toilet paper, close the lid and light it. Daring cooks used 2 toilet paper packs for a crisper crust. Shortly you enjoy hot pizza. It was decent given the circumstances.

1943 C-Ration Main Course

Boned Chicken
Chicken & Noodles
Meat Loaf
Spiced Beef/Sauce
Beans & Wieners
Spaghetti & Meatballs
Beef, Potato & Gravy
Ham & Lima Beans
Meatballs & Beans
Ham & Eggs
Beef Steak
Ham Slices
Turkey Loaf

Other Food Included

Apple Sauce
Fruit Cocktail
Peaches
Pears
Crackers
Peanut Butter
Chocolate
Processed Cheese Spread Caraway or Pimento
Fruit Cake
Pound Cake
Pecan Roll
White Bread (biscuit)
Cookies
Cocoa Powder
Various Jams

Accessory Pack Came with every meal choice.

Gum – 2 Chiclets
Toilet Paper
Matches
4-pack Cigarettes (various brands)
Salt
Pepper
Sugar
Non-dairy Creamer
Instant Coffee
Plastic Spoon

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