What was a pilots daily diet?

[Willi Von Klugerman]

I like to know what foods pilots ate like dinner,lunch,snacks,drinks,ect.
I can imagine that men of high ranks had the quality grub.I also like to know the foods from the other air forces.

[FliegerJG1]

Hi Willi,

It has been a while and you haven't received a reply so I'll try to add what I can here for you. To learn about the diets on airfields, you will likely find the details amongst various pilot memoirs.

Since my focus is on Richthofen, I can tell you that at times, his airfield was lucky enough to enjoy a garden. When he was stationed on the eastern front, the men had the rare treat of strawberries and cream with meals. If I find anything else I'll try to post it for you.

FliegerJG1

[Kirk]

It's an interesting question because I seem to remember an article in Over the Front some years ago that talked about the physical effects of flying. I seem to remember a short part of it talking about the fact cockpits were unpressurized and as such should the pilot have eaten something that produces gas before flying, would result in extreme discomfort for him once he got to altitude.

['14-'18aviationcollector]

Hi,

I don't know if it's an old wive's tale or not but Gerald Muir told me that pilots, especially those of rotary engined aeroplanes used to have chocolate and whiskey for breakfast at least. The reason this applies particularly to rotary engine pilots is that the fine mist of castor oil had a laxative effect. This is the reason it was not advisable to eat much, so the chocolate fulfils this role. The whiskey was supposedly to calm their nerves. As I was saying it could be an old wive's tale but this is what Gerald said, and I have heard it from other sources too of course.

Regards,

David.

[FliegerJG1]

Fred Murrin, well-known WWI airplane builder & pilot, explained to me that the pilot does not catch much castor oil in flight....it is dispersed out of the engine away from the pilot. He has flown a lot and never has had any trouble from castor oil. If pilots experienced laxative distress it may have been caused by nerves or something else.

FliegerJG1

[Willi Von Klugerman]

I heard the men of Jasta 4 were some serious drinkers,usually to the point of falling on their rears laughing!

Though MVR was strict on alchohol consumption as he wanted to stay sober for a sortie.

According to Cecile Lewis,whisky and milk was mixed together,possibly to make a pilot "focused".

[Maureen Dig Aire]

I read, in a couple of sources, that pilots (At least, French pilots) would drink milk and brandy with a raw egg in it. This was a usual breakfast for some of them who went up on morning patrol. And, they did drink! BOY, did they drink! Now, someone on here told me that whiskey wasn't so readily available Over There...that brandy and cognac was (were?) far more available. I'm sure those guys had their families send them whisky, though.

From what I've read, it seems the French did eat better than the British. There were times when vittles were harder to come by than other times.

This is an interesting question, Willi. Especially, since I'm most interested in the "day-in-the-life" aspect of pilots.

[Barrett]

British: Gin and a cigarette.
French: Cognac and a cigarette.
Russian: Vodka and a cigarette.
Italian: Wine and a cigarette.
German: Schnapps and a cigarette.
American: Gin, Cognac, Vodka, Wine, Schnapps, or Whiskey and a cigarette.
Canadian: Any of the above.
Australian: All the above!

[Nacho]

I read that there were some pilots just had a liquid diet. Many couldnt keep solid food down when they flew because they would usually throw it out so they would drink scotch or other stuff. There were some airfields that had ice cream freezers so pilots had ice cream.

[Romani]

Lots of soup, that being the most resource efficient way of feeding large numbers of troops since inmemorial time. Simply boil everything you have, meat, vegetables, flour..etc on big vats.

This is from memory as my library is at present packed in cardboard boxes after I've entered an institution. but I swear everything I write I have seen printed in black and white in some book here and there.

To begin with, you should look up what were the daily rations for troops in combat of each nation. These appear in a couple Osprey books of the Warrior series, like German Stormtrooper , Italian Arditi French Poilu andBritish Tommy 1914-18books. Generally speaking, soldiers in the Great War were not well fed, even for the British that had the better supply situation, the staples of the diet were canned or preserved meat, biscuit (hard tack, really), and bread, with little on the way of fresh meat, vegetables or fruits. The Germans due to the blockade were the worse off, with rations being reduced each year, 1916 had the dreadful "turnip winter" due to the failure of the potato crop, in 1917 a meatless day a week was introduced, and by 1918 they were on the verge of starvation, I think it was Ludendorff that remarked German troops were "worse fed than a chinese coolie"

But some of the Allied armies had their problems as well, the lousy quality and quantity of the food was one of the causes of the French mutinies of 1917, and in the Italian army, better rations were a very powerful incentive to join the Arditi shock troops.

So the daily rations for frontline infantry would be a good baseline. Pilots of course had it better than the poor bloody infantry since they could count on regular meals served hot, and since airfields were to the rear, the surrounding countryside offered more opportunities for bartering or buying from the local peasants, or plain foraging, euphemism for looting for food.

Since a lot of pilots were officers, they naturally would get better rations than the rank and file.

Also, since airmen had a hazardous duty, they probably got better rations, on par or better than those of shock troops. For example, in the Second World War, German U-boat crews had the best rations of the Wehrmacht, followed closely by fighter pilots, I think.

Now, back to the Great War, zeppelin crews did get the luxury of hearty breakfasts with eggs and bacon and other stuff, a high calory intake meal, before sailing out on a raid. That was a neccessity, since they had to endure several hours of flight at artic temperatures at high altitude.

I believe pilots were comparatively well fed, but they weren't certainly feasting on lobsters and champagne like at a general HQ table.And German pilots were the worse in this regard. I recall reading that even Manfred von Richthofen status and glory didn't secure him three hot meals a day of whatever he liked and sometimes "he was grumpy because there wasn't good things to eat"

Also, in a very good and detailed, autobiographical novel called "In the line" , the author, who was a German infantryman in the trenches, fed up with eating turnip puree, goes to visit a fighter pilot friend of his, in the winter of 1917-18 hoping to take advantage of the supposed delicatessen available to aviators, and all he had to eat was pickled tripe and artificial honey.

And since this has made me hungry and is dinner time, I will log off now.