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Show America In Action FEEDING FIGHTERS It takes a lot of careful planning to make certain that Pvt. Joe Smith of the armored troops gets the food he needs tomorrow noon when the tank in which he is a gunner blazes its way through enemy lines. He'll eat mostly out of tin cans, but the food he'll get will be good; it will taste well, and it will be nutritionally nu-tritionally adequate to give him the strength and energy to fight The can of meat which is his main course was packed in Chicago, Omaha or some other great meatpacking meat-packing center. He'll have two packages of special biscuits, a package of malted milk dextrose tablets, some soluble coffee, cubes of sugar, four cigarettes and a stick of chewing gum. To make all these food items converge in Africa at the right time and the right place so that Private Smith won't go hungry required that it be started on its way months ahead of time; that it be sent in sufficient reserve quantity so that the enemy's submarines couldn't interfere in-terfere with its arrival. And it was prepared in the first place under un-der close government inspection and according to carefully worked out formulas to assure proper nutritional nu-tritional value. Specifically, the army must always al-ways have on hand 272 days' supply sup-ply of food for every soldier on overseas duty. Without it, there could not be the uninterrupted flow of food to him three meals a day no matter what happens. The supply lines, of course, are long ones 6,000 miles and more in some cases through submarine-infested submarine-infested waters, areas under bombing bomb-ing attack and other perilous places. First, the army must have a 15-day 15-day supply of food in this country in transit from the producing centers cen-ters to the great supply depots at or near the ports where it is assembled assem-bled for overseas shipment. Next, a 65-day supply must always al-ways be kept on hand at these supply depots to meet any and all requirements, including the sudden order to load supplies for some new task force ordered to sail overnight. A 30-day supply must always be afloat en route on the high seas to the men in the theaters of war. Then there must be a minimum of 92-days' supplies in the great overseas supply depots in the theaters the-aters of operations, with still another an-other 45-day supply as operating stocks from which the daily withdrawals with-drawals are made. A 25-day supply sup-ply allowance must be made for losses of all kinds, ship sinkings, bombings and the like. Released by Western Newspaper Union. |