WW2 RN and MN diet - vitamin deficiency?

Discussion in 'General' started by TriciaF, Mar 30, 2020.

  1. TriciaF

    TriciaF Junior Member

    I was thinking again today about the skin rash that my Dad had in his naval service during the war. Could it have been due to vitamin deficiency? The rest of his life he had an orange every day after his lunch.
    What was the daily diet like on ships, that might be at sea for some time?
    The same question could be asked about the other Services.
     
  2. Robert-w

    Robert-w Banned

    The RN introduced regular doses of citrus juice (originally lime) in the 19th century in order to act as an anti scorbutic (anti scurvy) which it did by providing vit C (although vitamins were not discovered until the 1920s). They also introduced Marmite (in WW1) mistakenly for the same purpose - however it contains no vit C but it does contain vit B1 which acts to prevent a different deficiency disease. Lime juice and marmite was still available in WW2 and the former went very well in rum or ward room gin
     
    Last edited: Mar 30, 2020
  3. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    It might have been prickly heat. If he was in the Med or the Far East he might have picked up some sort of thing there, those parts of the world were not terribly hygienic.
     
  4. Robert-w

    Robert-w Banned

    There were cases of diseases caused by deficiencies in the Army in theatres where transport of supplies of fresh food proved difficult. For this reason vit B and vit C pills were issued as part of the rations but issuing pills and getting everyone to take them was a different matter. This appears to have been a problem in the Western Desert.
     
  5. Robert-w

    Robert-w Banned

    Prickly heat is not in itself directly caused by poor hygiene, it is a condition caused by long term exposure to humid hot conditions in which the sweat glands get blocked. It is not caused by a micro organism and is not infectious. However it can be exacerbated by a micro organism - viz - Staphylococcus. This produces a bio film which can block ones sweat glands so if one has a high amount of the bug on the skin one is more likely to suffer from PH but returning to temperate climates and baths it will cease to be a chronic (ie long term) issue. There are plenty of other little critters one can catch in hot places though that can cause an itch. However rashes and similar can also be the result of long term stress and can be a mild form of PTSD
     
  6. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    Yes, I know. I should have made it clearer that I was talking about two different possibilities, prickly heat and some other kind of thing which might have been picked up somewhere. Stress-related or psychosomatic causes are a third possibility, of course. As I recall, Vassili Chuikov got a terrible skin condition on his hands (said to be ezcema) during the worst period at Stalingrad.
     
  7. Robert-w

    Robert-w Banned

    I think that the upshot is - a vitamin deficiency might cause problems but if you survived it probably not long term ones so that the issue was likely caused by something else
     
  8. timuk

    timuk Well-Known Member

    Extracted from Rationing WW2
    Note the figures show the civilian ration for one week, the Navy rations are per day.


    Civilian rations.
    A typical ration for one person for one week was:-

    2oz butter
    2oz cheese
    2oz margarine
    2oz cooking fat
    2oz tea or coffee
    4oz jam or other preserves
    4oz bacon
    12oz meat
    1 egg
    2 pints of milk

    What did sailors eat?
    Apart from civilians, people in the services (Army, Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force) also relied on rations. The sailors on board HMS ships had a daily ration.
    The rations served to the sailors on board each day were as follows:-
    10 oz bread
    ½ lb fresh meat
    1 lb vegetables
    1 oz butter
    2 oz sugar
    ½ oz hot chocolate
    ¾ oz condensed milk
    1 oz jam, marmalade or pickles
    4 oz preserved meat
    eighth of a pint of rum
    ½ oz tea or coffee

    Tim
     
    Harry Ree likes this.
  9. Robert-w

    Robert-w Banned

    Yes indeed but one should be aware that the civilian ration covered what one was allowed to buy whereas the military ration was what one was given. Thus bread was never rationed in Britain nor were vegetables - or for that matter beer. In these cases if you could afford it and find someone to supply it you could buy it but on the other hand just because your ration entitled you to buy a certain amount did not guarantee that your designated shop would always be able to supply it. Retailers away from industrial centres did not always get enough to meet entitlements. Also the civilian ration did not include meals in canteens in "essential" factories which were "off ration" - this was a powerful incentive for households to have some members working in war industries where they were guaranteed at least one (sometimes two) substantial meals per working day without affecting their ration entitlement. It is necessary to apply a certain degree of discretion when comparing civilian with military rations as these represent two different things.
     
  10. timuk

    timuk Well-Known Member

    The OP's original question was "What was the daily diet like on ships, that might be at sea for some time?" which is what I was answering. The civilian ration is for comparison for items that were rationed as 1/2lb meat per day against 1lb meat/bacon per week.

    Tim
     
    Harry Ree likes this.
  11. Robert-w

    Robert-w Banned

    But your table does not give a proper picture as to what the daily diet was like in comparison as it does not show what bread consumption or vegetable consumption was like in comparison nor does it make any allowance for civilian food consumed in factory canteens or approved restaurants which would include meat etc. Indeed such comparisons are at best misleading as there are no figures as to what the typical civilian diet was as it varied significantly according to circumstances.
     
  12. Roy Martin

    Roy Martin Senior Member

    As many of these men were off pay from the moment their ship was torpedoed, they were not even able to draw money and go into town to buy food. When, or if, they eventually got back home, usually as DBSs (Distressed British Seamen), they were given a Rail Warrant and left to find their own way.

    There were debates in Parliament regarding conditions in the service. The discussions spilt over into the letters column in The Times. Hansard of 8 July 1941 records a debate on the subject of hospital rations for the Mercantile Marine. The Earl of Cork and Orrery said, ‘I should like to tell your Lordships what are the differences in the rations, because they are not trivial but are very large. As regards meat, the Royal Naval rating receives in a week 2 ⅝ lbs, whereas the merchant seaman only receives 1s.worth of meat, which is less than 1 lb. As regards butter, the naval rating gets 10 ½ oz, and the merchant seaman only 6 oz. The naval rating gets 1 lb 8 oz of sugar, and the merchant seaman only ½ lb. In the matter of bacon, the naval rating's ration is 9 oz and the merchant seaman's 4 oz.’ All agreed and passed to provide equal rations to Merchant Seaman, the subject being the effect of poor rations on the health of merchant seamen and its effect on their chances of recovery on being admitted to hospital.i

    On 10 September 1941 Lord Marchwood moved a motion to have a Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the conditions of service in the Mercantile Marine.ii In this he was supported by the Earl of Cork and Orrery and Lord Chatfield. Lord Marchwood was a Master Mariner and both the Earl of Cork and Orrery and Lord Chatfield were retired Admirals of the Fleet. Other Lords, with experience in one or other of the sea services, spoke in favour. Lord Thurlow had been on the Pacific coast in the days of sail and remembered that 'the conditions of a merchant sailor were probably as bad as anything you can imagine. The masters did their very best to make them better.'

    The motion was strongly opposed by Lord Leathers, who was the Minister of War Transport. He contended that 'A Royal Commission is unnecessary because there already exists, in the form of the National Maritime Board, an organisation representative of the officers, seamen and employers which is fully competent to deal with the problems relating to the well-being and conditions of seagoing personnel.' In fact, throughout its existence, the NMB had not made an effort to improve conditions in the Merchant Navy.

    In March 1942 the subject of a Royal Commission was debated in the Lower House. Petty Officer Herbert, the Senior Burgess for Oxford University, dealt fully with the subject.iii He said that 'I did not yield to the temptation to send all these letters (from seafarers in support of a Royal Commission) to the press when Lord Marchwood and I were so much abused.'

    In the course of his lengthy speech he also said:

    It has been my privilege during this war to see from time to time . . . . the convoys coming home, ships of all sorts and sizes. Their paint is battered, and they have wounds on their sides sometimes. They have come through every imaginable danger, but their flags are flying, and no man can look at them without a lift of the heart. But they go by . . . as strange and silent as ghosts. How little we know about the lives of these men. The seamen look over the side with that remote, sardonic look which they reserve for all miserable mortals who are not sailing in their own particular ship. They seem to say to me "You will never know anything about us, and you will never really do anything for us. We are the pets of all the world today. Tomorrow you will forget us, as you did last time. . . . I hope that this will not be true. ‘ (Sadly it is true)

    i lb = pound,~ 454 grams; oz = ounce (16 = 1 lb); s = shilling (20 to the £); d = penny (12 = 1 shilling).

    ii http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1941/sep/10/mercantile-marine.

    iii http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1942/mar/19/mercantile-marine-1.
     
  13. TriciaF

    TriciaF Junior Member

    Thanks to all for the replies - what an eye-opener!
    Although I'm not surprised at the neglect of the health of the MN. A service sadly unappreciated.
    Why the discrepancy? Social class discrimination ?
    My Dad's ancestors were captains of coal ships (with sails) in the 1800s, to the Baltic and the Med. They and their crews must have had worse food problems.
    @ TTH - he was in the far east for a short time so could have been something he caught there.
     
  14. TriciaF

    TriciaF Junior Member

    ps the fishermen were also not appreciated.
     
  15. Robert-w

    Robert-w Banned

    Military ration scales varied according to both location and duties. Thus in the British Army the scale for men in training was based on a need of about 3,400 calories per day but on active service in a cool climate this was increased to about 4,300 and to 4,800 in a hot climate. The Navy's Victualling Board worked to something similar. (A civilian working male in Britain was reckoned to need 3,000 cals p d.) However the ration scale for a particular location would also vary according to availability of particular food stuffs with local produce often being substituted. By 1945 there were 49 basic British Ration Scales and the British Army had a further 140 on top of this to cover everything from the garrison of St Helena to the occupants of military prisons. How many additional scales the Navy had I don't know but I feel sure they had some. One therefore needs to be careful about generalising about ration scales

    See Dr. Janet Macdonald From Boiled Beef to Chicken Tikka - 500 years of feeding the British Army
     
    TriciaF likes this.
  16. Robert-w

    Robert-w Banned

    One of the problems that those responsible for feeding British forces overseas had was how to introduce local substitutes given a typical British resistance to novelty and "foreign muck". 'Bill' Slim wrote about this in relation to the Army in Persia. Due to the war in general and the Anglo Soviet occupation in particular the export market for Persian caviar was blocked and local merchants could not give the stuff away. Some bright commissary spark had the idea of serving it in the mess halls which gave rise to complaints that " the black current jam tastes of fish".
     
    TriciaF likes this.
  17. Robert-w

    Robert-w Banned

    In the Mediterranean theatre much of the supply of food to the RN was taken over by the RASC which sourced it locally - particularly vegetables grown in Egypt and Syria. By March 1943 this local supply to both the Navy and the Army had saved over one million tons of shipping.
     
    TriciaF likes this.
  18. Roy Martin

    Roy Martin Senior Member

    If anyone is interested in the details of merchant seamen's rations they are pasted in the front of any copy of a ship's Articles of Agreement. I think that dates from the 1894 Merchant Shipping Act. Before then there were no minimum standards. So you are right Tricia, things would have been worse in your ancestors time. Even in the 1950s and 60s coasters were self-feeding, so they got a small sum to buy their own food. We got an allowance of 5 shillings and four pence a day when we were on leave, the idea being that when we were on the ship food was part of our wages! But it meant that we were paid twice as much when we were on leave! One foggy week anchored off Southend Pier, when a small boat from a coaster appeared alongside, asking if they could 'borrow' a pound of sausages, as they had run out of food.
    I also remember when I was an Apprentice one of the crew complained that he wasn't gettting his Board of Trade whack (rations). The 'old man' promptly put the ratings on the whack, and, as he hated Apprentices, we were put on it as well. Half a fried egg for breakfast etc.!
     
    BaldyBob, TriciaF, Dave55 and 3 others like this.
  19. Robert-w

    Robert-w Banned

    A Royal Navy dietary solution adopted by the IJN.

    The modern IJN originally had a severe problem with Beriberi (as did the IJA). This is caused by a lack of thiamine. Polished white rice is devoid of thiamine. In pre war Japan eating this kind of rice was a mark of status and both the IJN and IJA fed it to their forces in order to attract recruits and it became a major part of their diet. Not knowing the cause of the disease the IJN during WW1 studied their ally the RN in order to determine why they stayed clear of the illness. At the time the RN also ate white rice, but not in the same quantities as the IJN and usually as part of a curry. The RN curry was very far from a proper Indian curry being made with lots of meat and flour and yellow curry powder (like chip shop curry sauce). The Japanese came to the conclusion that it was the curry that prevented beriberi. This is not completely the case - it's the meat and the flour that contains thiamine not the curry powder. Nevertheless the IJN tried serving British style meat based curry up to its sailors with their rice and it worked. By WW2 British curry was a regular meal in IJN warships and actually became something of a favourite.
     
    Dave55 likes this.
  20. timuk

    timuk Well-Known Member

    Beriberi was a major concern of the IJN in the 19th Century. A naval physician, called Takaki Kanehiro, whilst not understanding that the disease was caused by a lack of thiamine B1 came to the conclusion that it was caused by poor diet particularly the over emphasis of white rice. The Navy changed its diet and by the late1800s was almost free of Beriberi. The IJA remained sceptical until they too changed their diet in the early 1900s when they too dramatically reduced their cases of Berberi. Beriberi again became a problem for the IJA in WW2 but this was due to logistical deficiencies in supply.

    Tim
     
    Last edited: Mar 31, 2020

Share This Page