Taste a little better than a boiled potato
The Army, Hershey Chocolate, and Halloween
Edible, but not too delicious. These are not words kids want to hear this week on Halloween. But thankfully for trick-or-treaters, these words belong to a different era. These were the instructions Captain Paul Logan of the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps gave to Hershey Chocolate in 1935, when designing a new chocolate ration for soldiers. To be specific, his exact words were that the new bar should tase “a little better than a boiled potato.” Logan wanted food that was edible and packed with nutrients, but not so tasty that soldiers would want to over-eat. In my opinion, Logan could have set the bar even lower, as there were many times during Army Ranger School when I would have leapt at the chance to eat a boiled potato, possibly even raw potatoes. But in any case, Hershey delivered. Logan’s work culminated in the Ration D bar and subsequently, the Hershey Tropical Chocolate bar (which tasted better), used in enormous volumes during World War II.
This video is from the Defense Commissary Agency. For those unfamiliar with this agency and it’s Minute of History, there is a lot going on in this video, but it quickly conveys a lot of the history of chocolate and the Army.
The story of Hershey and the Army does not end with the rations, however. Hershey would go on to play a prominent role in the life of World War II hero, Major Richard “Dick” Winters, of the storied Band of Brothers. Following the war, Winters worked in New Jersey; however, in the 1950s he purchased farmland in his home state of Pennsylvania. In 1972, he moved to Hershey Pennsylvania and started his own company producing animal feed. The special ingredients used to kickstart his business? Food byproducts from Hershey Chocolate company. I’m not sure whether his animal feed tasted better than boiled potatoes, but it proved a hit and Winters successfully grew the business until retiring in the late 1990s.
Statue of Major Dick Winters, near Utah Beach, Normandy France. Source: DVIDS.
Hershey continues to supply the military, though today it appears more for peanut-butter related candies than chocolate bars. But while soldiers might not be able to pull out a Hershey bar from their MRE, they can readily join the 72 percent of Americans who plan on participating in Halloween activities this year and go out and snag a bar from their neighbors. Or better yet, they can be that house on the block that hands out whole Hershey bars!
Happy Halloween from Army 250!
Additional Resources:
Learn more about the Hershey Chocolate company here.
See the Major Dick Winters collection at the Gettysburg Museum of History.
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