"US soldier from the 11th Airborne Division shares a bit of chocolate with a local girl, 1946, Japan. One of the main reasons for using chocolate in armies is the high energy content it has and how easy to carry it is. It has a light weight and long durability and was usually carried in simple pockets by any kind of soldiers. During World War Two, the best-known chocolate was the Scho-Ka-Kola, destined to German Luftwaffe pilots in order to obtain fast and to keep their minds active during the combat. On the other hand, the American Army started serving Hershey’s chocolate to their troops. The result was the so-called "Logan Bars". This same company created in the 90s the "Desert Bar" designed for the operations in Middle East "Shield and Desert Storm", although the soldiers’ opinion of the soldiers on its flavour did not contribute to its later commercialization. This time it was the last one that the American Army used chocolate as energetic food, since in our days it is being replaced by synthetic food which, although it will be of help, will surely not give so much happiness to the troops than a good ol’ piece of tasty chocolate.
By the way, you can still buy Scho-Ka-Kola and Hershey’s, which is great.
1946, John Florea"
Hi Jackie. It's me, "Dennis".
Just an FYI, I have no cross-gendered 'progressive' college student children. I merely made a comment on the apparent age of the soldiers in the picture. It's pretty unclear to me why you would make such a comment to me.
Not that it matters, my father, and many of my father's friends, served in combat in WWII. Some survived, some didn't. My father did survive the war in the Pacific. He recently passed away at 96YO.
Again, not that it matters, he attained the rank of Master Sergeant (E-8) in approximately 1 year. I heard many of his and his friends' tales of their war time experiences. Some of the "best" tales my father had from the war, well, he didn't talk about until the year he died. I finally got him to talk about those.
Going through his personal belongings I know with certainty that both his tales and the fact he achieved a rank that typically would take 8 years to achieve were true. He was in his 20s during the war, and neither he nor those in the photos with him during his time in the military looked as young as those in the picture I commented on.