The Taste of War: World War II and the Battle for Food Read online

  The Taste of War

  The Taste of War

  World War II and the Battle for Food

  LIZZIE COLLINGHAM

  THE PENGUIN PRESS

  NEW YORK

  2012

  THE PENGUIN PRESS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:

  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First American edition

  Published in 2012 by The Penguin Press,

  a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Copyright © Lizzie Collingham, 2011

  All rights reserved

  Illustration credits appear on pages xi–xii.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA

  Collingham, E. M. (Elizabeth M.)

  The taste of war : World War Two and the battle for food / Lizzie Collingham.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN: 978-1-101-56131-7

  1. World War, 1939–1945—Food supply. 2. Food supply—History—20th century. 3. Food security—History—20th century. 4. Nutrition policy—History—20th century. 5. Starvation—History—20th century. 6. Food habits—History—20th century. 7. War and society—History—20th century. I. Title. II. Title: World War Two and the battle for food.

  HD9000.5.C624 2012

  940.53′1—dc23

  2011043783

  Printed in the United States of America

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  ALWAYS LEARNING

  PEARSON

  For Sarah

  Contents

  List of Illustrations

  Acknowledgements

  Note on Sources

  Maps

  1 Introduction – War and Food

  PART I

  Food – An Engine of War

  2 Germany’s Quest for Empire

  From wheat to meat

  Defeat, hunger and the legacy of the First World War

  Autarky and Lebensraum

  Herbert Backe and the Hunger Plan

  Genocide in the east

  3 Japan’s Quest for Empire

  A radical answer to rural crisis

  One million households in Manchuria

  From Nanjing to Pearl Harbor

  PART II

  The Battle for Food

  4 American Boom

  5 Feeding Britain

  From meat to bread and potatoes

  American dried egg and Argentinian corned beef

  6 The Battle of the Atlantic

  The worst winter of the war

  The American lifeline

  Frozen meat versus men and arms

  Victory in the Atlantic

  7 Mobilizing the British Empire

  The Middle East Supply Centre

  Profiteering in East Africa

  West Africa and the dollar deficit

  The Bengal famine

  8 Feeding Germany

  The battle for production

  The occupation of western Europe

  Greek famine and Belgian resilience

  Allies and Aryans

  9 Germany Exports Hunger to the East

  Living off the land

  Implementing the Hunger Plan

  The food crisis of 1941–42

  The Holocaust in Poland

  Food confiscation in the Ukraine

  10 Soviet Collapse

  11 Japan’s Journey towards Starvation

  Rice and sweet potatoes

  Chaos and hunger in the empire

  12 China Divided

  Nationalist collapse

  Communist survival

  PART III

  The Politics of Food

  13 Japan – Starving for the Emperor

  Healthy eating as a patriotic virtue

  Churchill’s rations

  The American blockade

  Guadalcanal

  New Guinea

  Burma

  Hunger on the home islands

  Surrender

  14 The Soviet Union – Fighting on Empty

  Feeding the Red Army

  Feeding the cities

  The American lifeline

  Perseverance despite hunger

  15 Germany and Britain – Two Approaches to Entitlement

  1930s Britain – a nutritional divide

  1930s Germany – the campaign for nutritional freedom

  The politics of rationing

  Feeding the British working classes

  Feeding the German war machine

  The black market

  The German cities – hungry but not starving

  16 The British Empire – War as Welfare

  Dr Carrot – guarding the British nation’s health

  Closing the nutritional gap

  Health and morale – the Army Catering Corps

  Fighting on bully beef and biscuits

  Porridge, peas and vitamins

  Nutritional reconditioning – the Indian army

  17 The United States – Out of Depression and into

  Abundance

  The ‘good war’

  Future hopes

  Troop welfare

  Australia – food processing for victory

  Feeding Pacific islanders

  PART IV

  The Aftermath

  18 A Hungry World

  19 A World of Plenty

  American plenty versus European relief

  A vision for the future

  The shape of the post-war food world

  The rise of the new consumer

  A Selective Chronology of the Second World War

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Index

  List of Illustrations

  1. ‘State Secretary Herbert Backe. Reich Minister for Food and Agriculture, NSDAP.’ 2 June 1942. Bundesarchiv: Bild 183–J02034.

  2. ‘A re-settled Polish family (Matschak) from Skaradsch.’ Photographer Wilhelm Holtfreter, c. 1939–41. Bundesarchiv: R-49 Bild-0129.

  3. Ours to fight for. Freedom from want. Poster of an original painting by Norman Perceval Rockwell published by the Division of Public Inquiries, Office of War Information, US Government Printing Office, offset lithograph on paper, 71 × 50.9 cm. Australian War Memorial: ARTV00185.

  4. Potatoes set our shipping free. British poster issued by the Ministry of Agriculture, c. 1939–45. HMSO, James Haworth & Brother, offset lithograph on paper, 74.6 × 49.6 cm. Australian War Memorial: ARTV01561.

  5. Hamster – shame on you! Poster by Max Eschle. Published by the Reich Propaganda Departm
ent, NSDAP. December 1939. Bundesarchiv: Plak 003–023–077.

  6. ‘France, Paris. German soldiers buying cakes from a street seller with Notre Dame in the background.’ Photographer Heinz Boesig. Summer 1940. Bundesarchiv: 101I-129–0480–05A.

  7. ‘The arrival of confiscated foodstuffs.’ Archive Heinrich Hoffmann, September 1942. bpk, Berlin: Bild 50073634.

  8. ‘Registration of Jews. Violence against a Jewish man – mistreatment by a civilian next to a German sentry.’ Photographer Franke. June 1941. Bundesarchiv: Bild 101I-186–0160–12.

  9. ‘Inhabitant of Stalingrad cooking on a makeshift oven.’ September 1942. Bundesarchiv: Bild 169–0369.

  10. ‘Balikpapan, Borneo. Two Malayan natives, suffering from malnutrition after being ill-treated and starved by the Japanese, now receiving treatment at the Netherlands civil administration compound in 7 Division area.’ 10 July 1945. Australian War Memorial: 111003.

  11. ‘Muchu Island, New Guinea. Japanese soldiers cooking their rations over a fire.’ 11 September 1945. Australian War Memorial: 096143.

  12. ‘Papua, Sanananda area. After having been in action during which time their only food was bully beef and biscuits, these Americans prepare a hot meal – jungle stew.’ Photographer Clifford Bottomley. 27 January 1943. Australian War Memorial: 014241.

  13. ‘Sandakan, North Borneo. A badly emaciated Japanese POW waiting to embark on a landing ship, Tank (LST) for the POW camp at Jesselton.’ Photographer Frank Albert Charles Burke. 26 October 1945. Australian War Memorial: 121785.

  14. ‘Tokyo, Japan. A scene from one of Tokyo’s tall buildings shows evidence of the shortage of food among the people.’ 1945. Australian War Memorial: 019221.

  15. ‘Tokyo Bay, Japan. Australian Navy personnel who boarded USS Sims (an American assault destroyer) to take part in the naval landing of Tokyo Bay enjoy the food piled up on their American mess trays. They are Leading Writer Jack Norris of Sydney, NSW, and Leading Stores Assistant Jim Cumming of Essendon, Vic.’ c. August 1945. Australian War Memorial: 019248.

  Acknowledgements

  For talking or writing to me about their experiences during the war and for putting me in contact with or interviewing their friends and relatives on my behalf I would like to thank: Alison Backhouse, Dorothy Bacon, Elfreda Bayly, Jill Beattie, Teruko Blair, Richard and Margot Eickelmann, Herbert Froböse, Prof. Fujita, Reinhold Fellies, Elfriede Günter, Helmut Geidel, Doris Hallpike, Tom Kimura, Alois and Elizabeth Kleinemas, Professor Kusakabe, Mary, Doreen and Peter Laven, Jean Legas, Evdokiya Andreevna Levina, Robert Mair, Prof. Matsumoto Nakako, Elizabeth and Tony Minchin, Eva Norman, Oki, Chiyo, Catherine Oki, Clara and Emilia Olivier, Irmgard and Peter Seidel and Tosa, Mitsuhiro, Akiko and Hiroko. I would also like to thank the copyright holders of the papers held in the Imperial War Museum for permission to quote from their relatives’ memoirs. I am grateful to the staff at the Imperial War Museum, Cambridge University Library, the National Library of Australia, the Australian National Archives and the Australian War Memorial for their assistance.

  Generous friends have at various times lent me their homes and spare bedrooms during the writing of this book and I am very grateful to Stephen Barton and Maureen Langham, Sarah Burwood and John Hay, Pam and Vic Gatrell, Mike and Tricia O’Brien, Clare and Simon Redfern, Tim, Jan and Anna Rowse, Peter and Becky Ryan and Lionel and Deirdre Ward. I am especially grateful to Fiona, Andrew, Ali and Sarah Blake for providing me with a quiet room of my own and sustaining meals and conversation during a stressful period in the writing process.

  Interesting conversations as well as helpful suggestions and assistance in finding information were provided by friends and colleagues. I would like to thank Clare Alexander, Olaf Blaschke, Steven Bullard, Adrian Caesar, John Cornwell, Joanna Cwiertka, Peter Garnsey, Sophie Gilmartin, Gu∂mundur Jonsson, Tsuchihashi Kenichiro, Barack Kushner, David Lowe, Veronique Mottier, Rachel Murphy, Mogens Rostgaard Nissen, Keith Richmond, Richard Overy, Tim Rowse, Wendy Way and Hans-Ulrich Wehler. In particular I would like to thank those who read and commented on the manuscript: Chris Bayly, Paul Brassley, Helen Conford, Adam Tooze, Rebecca Earle, Mike O’Brien and Rana Mitter. I am very grateful to Geoff Dunn for devising the maps. Thanks are also due to Rikin Trivedi and his team.

  Finally, I am indebted to my sister, Sarah, for endlessly re-reading the manuscript and for generous help and cheerful support. Thomas Seidel knows how much I owe him and I especially thank him for his assistance with the research as well as his willingness to engage in discussion and for always asking challenging questions.

  Note on Sources

  Throughout the book I refer to Mass Observation and the Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System. Mass Observation was set up in Britain in 1937 by the anthropologist Tom Harrisson, the sociologist Charles Madge and film-maker Humphrey Jennings, to record the views of ordinary people. During the war around 3,000 people responded to questionnaires sent out to them by Mass Observation and others kept diaries which they would send in to Mass Observation in instalments. These are now held by the Mass Observation archive at the University of Sussex and many have since been published in various collections. The names given to Mass Observation observers are pseudonyms. The Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System consists of transcripts of interviews conducted in West Germany in 1950–51 with refugees and defectors from the Soviet Union, most of whom were living in camps for displaced persons at the time. The interviews were conducted on behalf of the United States government in order to gain an understanding of communism.

  1

  Introduction – War and Food

  ‘Death by famine lacks drama. Bloody death, the deaths of many by slaughter as in riots or bombings is in itself blood-bestirring; it excites you, prints indelible images on the mind. But death by famine, a vast slow dispirited noiseless apathy, offers none of that. Horrid though it may be to say, multitudinous death from this cause … regarded without emotion as a spectacle, is until the crows get at it, the rats and kites and dogs and vultures very dull.’1 This was the view of newspaper editor Ian Stephens commenting on the Bengal famine of 1943, which killed 3 million Indians. It is perhaps the quiet and unobtrusive nature of death by starvation which explains why many of those who died of hunger during the Second World War are largely forgotten today. While the Vietnam war is firmly embedded in the western collective memory, most westerners have never heard of the famine in the Vietnamese region of Tonkin in 1943–44 which probably killed more peasants than all the years of war which followed.2 And yet ‘one dies a very terrible death from starvation’.3 As one of the survivors of the Leningrad siege was disturbed to discover, ‘It’s not so horrifying when a person … has been hit by a shell or a bomb. But what happened as a result of hunger, that was particularly awful, the way a person’s face changed … a man became an animated corpse and … a corpse is a grim spectacle.’4

  During the Second World War at least 20 million people died just such a terrible death from starvation, malnutrition and its associated diseases: a number to equal the 19.5 military deaths.5 The impact of the war on food supplies was thus as deadly in its effect on the world population as military action. This book seeks to understand the role of food at the heart of the conflict. The focus on food is not intended to exclude other interpretations but rather to add an often overlooked dimension to our understanding of the Second World War.

  The book begins by uncovering the important role food played in driving both Germany and Japan into conflict. During the nineteenth century Europe’s urban industrial workforce substantially increased their consumption of meat, while the demand for rice rose significantly among Japan’s urban population. Both countries feared that their agricultural sectors could not produce enough food to feed the cities. Britain had responded to the problem of feeding its urban population by embracing free trade and it imported large quantities of food and animal fodder. But Germany and Japan felt disadvantaged by the international economy dominated by Britain and America. Right
-wing elements within both countries pushed for an alternative, more radical solution to the problem of food and trade. Rather than accepting subordination to the United States, Hitler preferred to engage in a struggle for world supremacy and looked to an eastern empire as a source of food and other resources which would make Germany self-sufficient and independent of world trade. This made war in eastern Europe inevitable. The Japanese army sought to reduce its country’s dependence on the United States by consolidating its hold over mainland China which many officers saw as an area of settlement and resources, not the least of which was food. But Japanese belligerence in China set the country on a collision course with the United States in the Pacific.

  This perspective on the causes of the Second World War is relevant to the contemporary global food situation. The problem which confronted Germany and Japan in the 1930s, of how to feed a growing urban population with the more nutritious but also more costly food which it demands, has returned to confront the developing world with even greater force and with the potential for an equally global impact at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

  Rising living standards among the growing urban middle classes in developing countries such as China, India, Indonesia and Brazil have led to marked changes in eating habits. Zhang Xiuwen grew up a member of a poor farming family in the rural province of Yunnan. He often went hungry and he only ever ate meat on special holidays once or twice a year. He never drank milk. Now he is a tennis coach in Beijing and he and his family can afford to eat meat and drink milk every day. This shift from a grain-based vegetarian diet to one rich in meat and milk has been replicated across China and the rest of the developing world, where hundreds of millions of consumers’ food preferences have changed as their nutritional status has improved. Chinese per capita consumption of meat has risen in the last twenty-eight years from 20 kilograms in 1980 to 54 kilograms in 2008. The wider impact of such changing tastes has been to divert ever more of the world’s grain harvest into the stomachs of animals rather than humans. In 2007 China imported 45 per cent of the soya beans traded on the world market to feed pigs, poultry and farmed fish. Approximately 30 per cent of the world’s grain crop is now fed to livestock.6