WW2 Caffeine and Coffee
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ก.ค. 2024
- An Overview of the Importance of Caffeine and Coffee during WW2 featuring Hollywood movie examples.
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Movies/Video Games Featured:
Sands of Iwo Jima 1949
The Pacific 2010
Kelly’s Heroes 1970
Saving Private Ryan 1998
Greyhound 2020
Pearl Harbor 2001
Band of Brothers 2001
Dunkirk 1958
Sink the Bismarck 1960
A Bridge Too Far 1977
Stalingrad 1993
Der Fuehrer's Face
Der Fuehrer’s Face 1943
Das Boot 1981
La Grande Vadrouille 1966
Empire of the Sun 1987
Stop that Tank! 1942
#history #coffee #ww2
The last-minute dad joke at the end was worth it.
Us dads are known for silliness....
Yes it sure was and also good video really tough staying awake and alert especially in a time of conflict as this video tells with coffee and caffeine around those times.
Grounds for punishment.
Spoiler alert much???
No, it wasn’t.....
Coffee was a major part of Finnish culture even before WW2. We quite literally ran out of coffee during the war and made our own "Erzats coffee" or "Korvike" by roasting different grains. It was a national event when the first coffee ship arrived in Finland after the war in 1945.
I'm sure that the era with substitute coffee has led to a nation wide generational trauma and that's why we finns consume the most coffee in the world nowadays :D
alot was made from dandelion roots and water lily roots, never heard that grains would have been used much.
Erzats coffee defeats the main purpose of coffee THE CAFFEINE
SISU
Are Finland still number one in coffee consumption per person?
Try the soldier diet
20% Coffee
20% Cigarettes
60% Pervitin
Man, I miss my 20s...
That’s a not soldier diet, that’s a junkie meal.
@@Will-sq3ip Either that or an actual Nazi trooper diet.
@@Will-sq3ip As a junkie I'll let you know it's 50% Pervitin and 10% fentanyl.
Try the Übermensch breakfast:
-A double Espresso
-A cigarette
-A Pervitin pill
-A line of 1:1 Cocaine
-A pint of Beer
-a glass of Orange Juice and Amaretto with ice
-A Banana
-A Microdose hit of LSD
-Creatin & Protein Powder milkshake
*The Great Escape* [1963] has a great scene where Henley [James Garner] is tempting The Ferret (a German guard) into his room with the promise of *Real Coffee*
While in Iraq in 2005 there were periods of time that I went without coffee for up to several days that made me appreciate it so much more when I got back. Even when we would get access to coffee while on missions, it was often powdered "instant" coffee you might get in an MRE. To this day I value every cup I can have whenever I want back in the USA.
They tried to sate us with those Rip-its energy drinks, but I generally preferred regular coffee.
Several days, aw poor baby how did you manage?
I lucked out and did convoy security driving.
Red Bull and Hydroxycut cocktail.
Allies: A Big cup of Joe/Tea to start the day
Germany and Japan: *I LOVE METH*
Soviets: Vodka 24/7
Amphetamine usage was common back then
German soldier "Hans, your coffee sucks!"
Another German soldier "I'm not your mom, go make it yourself!"
@@Moeflyer6213Aaayyy Company of Heroes reference!
Americans: Benzedrine (amphetamine sulfate)!
Fun Fact. Tobacco and balsa wood was used to pack equipment so that it could be useful after the equipment was delivered to Britain by the convoys. Tobacco obviously for consumption, but the Balsa wood was used to make model aircraft for enemy aircraft type identification models, as well as the D.H. Mosquito Aircraft. Ecuadorian Balsa, if you were wondering.
I wouldn’t think packing balsa was used for Mossie aircraft production. Any Balsa with flaws, cracks or water damage would have severe consequences in high stress areas of the aircraft. Like other types of timber, I’m sure Balsa had different grades. Only the highest grade would be used for aircraft production. The lowest grade would be used as packing material.
What better way to counteract battlefield fatigue than with caffeine, coffee, and tea. The battlefield is a tiring place, and a nice warm brew can make it at least somewhat bearable. It's nice to know the soldiers, particularly the Brits and Americans, had at least some luxuries on the battlefield like these.
And nicotine. Cigarettes used to be part of the rations on every side of WW2. During Stalingrad, cigarette rations often stayed the same when food had to be reduced.
They were hopped up on stuff
It's very telling that all British tanks during WWII, and still to this day, all have boiling vessels built into them. This way the crew could always boil water to make a cup of tea during lulls in the fighting as well as heat up their rations.
You really can make a good commercial and advertisement with this statement, anyway who knows what other topics JJ can go for next like the MIGs family of Jets is 1 and maybe that ME 262 is another among who knows there's a lot of topics out there.
@@minhducnguyen9276 I cannot wait for ww2 ciggarettes and tobbacos series , i heard alot they smoked wood chip with newspaper for alternatives of real thing
the scene in Heartbreak Ridge where Clint goes into the Sergeant-Major's office and is caught stealing his lifers juice is my favourite coffee moment in movie. in the 1980s the BBc had a tv series called "Private Schultz" who was a criminal turned SS soldier who was smuggling coffee to Germans starved of the real thing in ww2. In WW1 there had been shortages of tea - all of it had to come in by ship ofc - so the British govt had actually stockpiled tea supplies. getting tea was no problem for Great Britain because at the time she was ruling most of the countries growing tea - apart from China ofc
China had been very restrictive in its supply of tea, which meant they kept the price high, and had managed to keep foreigners away from their plantations. Once Britain got hold of some cutting they started growing it in India.
As well as growing tea in Malaysia and Indonesia. @@bigblue6917
I was thinking of heartbreak Ridge yesterday & that particular scene you mentioned
¹¹¹
Oh yeah, from India and Sri Lanka. Or in particular, Assam and Ceylon teas.
I've found quite a lot of US coffee and lemonade aluminium bags in the Ardennes, often on the edge of foxholes
You should do a metal detecting youtube channel , would be very interesting
@@Hello11World I had a few shorts posted, they were successful, but the law around metal detecting is quite restricting so I decided to remove them 😕
When the average German soldiers were finding that the Allies had Coffee, Cigarettes and Chocolate, they knew they would eventually lose the war.
Because the Wehrmacht were zooming on crystal meth.
It wasn't just that. It was the fact that they were finding in captured Allied supplies that they had *fresh* chocolate cake as their MRE desserts coming from bakeries in America. With a supply chain like that in 1945, their victory was assured.
Who needs coffee when you have pervitin
or food @@DeliciousDogMeat
A perfectly balanced breakfast
The USA also has the Kentucky Coffeetree, which got its name from the Civil War. The South was blockaded by the North, but the Confederates found out the seeds made ersatz coffee.
You talk about wartime field coffee and I just think: "Coffee, Instant, type 2. Nice."
Germany: Making bread from literal sawdust
America: Dedicated fleet of Ice Cream ships
In the words of Private Webster: "Look at you! You have horses! What were you thinking?"
That silly comparison alone drives home that Germany lost the War long before Mr artist offed himself in the bunker. Mass Logistics always win.
Reminds me of Battle of the Bulge when Robert Shaw, playing German Col. Hessler, finds a chocolate cake on an American soldier. Just completely outmatched in every regard.
Really is a big difference there and also I think there's another video about those ships anyway can't give out the name really have to search it out yourself.
@@kellychuang8373the fat electrician did a video on it
This scene where the solder was to bring back more ammo for his pinned down buddies but gets tempted by the coffee only to return to his dead buddies.
That was Forest Tucker in The Sands of Iwo Jima. A sad scene when he returns to the fox hole.
There's depressing real stories of WWII soldiers delivering holiday food to the frontline from the field kitchens only to be blown to bits by artillery. I can't imagine how horrifying it'd be to smell hot thanksgiving dinner spilled onto the ground while one of your colleague's blood is all over it and he himself is dead and covered in now inedible food from a destroyed thermos can
*Marine
@@everythingsalright1121I remember seeing a mash episode were they had a solder trying to starve himself because during thanksgiving he went for seconds and while he was gone his buddy's got hit and he felt guilty.
@@tiffanygrever8092 horrifying stuff
When people think of wars, their mind will automatically think of large set piece battles, machines and destruction. However the day to day mundane aspects of life on the frontlines and on the home front is seldom talked about. This was a very interesting look at what the average soldier would have drank on all sides of the conflict and how the availability of such products would contribute positively to morale and productivity. Fantastic video. Keep up the good work
Johnny, those jokes at the end really ground my gears!
I'm eager to discover what he brews up in the next video.
4:16 I literally ate a few pieces of Scho-Ka-Kola like 30 minutes ago and then saw this video pop up on my feed. I was hoping you'd mention it. 😄
I have both the red (60% cacao) and blue tins (30% cacao) next to me. They're pretty good actually! The red tin is a dark chocolate with a mild coffee and kola aftertaste. The blue tin is a milk chocolate that is very coffee-forward with a mild kola aftertaste. I thought I had no idea what kola tasted like, but when you taste it you recognise it immediately (from Coca-Cola and Pepsi Cola)
I love it but its so damn expensive in the US
@@Legitpenguins99it's like $6 on Amazon. Or like $4 on a website called Varusteleka (but you need to pay shipping). Definitely more expensive than other chocolates though 😅
.... ☕️ "Let's get this out onto a tray. Nice!" . 👌🏻
Perfect! Perfect opening with Forrest Tucker in "Sands of Iwo Jima."
None better!
I prefer regular coffee but instant is better than nothing. I remember when I was training out west years ago. I was on our company operations chiefs vehicle. His standing order was if the vehicle was stopped more than 5 minutes, the coffee maker was brewing, and since everyone knew we had it we probably made 5 gallons of coffee compared to each gallon of water we drank. Even remember dipping coffee a few times when there was no chance to make it.
Trick to making instant coffee more palatable is not allow it to reach high temperatures.
Easiest solution is to mix it with bit of cold water and then you can fill rest of the mug with boiling hot water straight from the kettle.
@@tarnvedra9952interesting tip, thanks! 😀
I’ve heard of something called Ranger Pudding. This is where you take equal parts instant coffee and hot chocolate powder, put them in a heatproof bag, and then pour boiling water into the bag until the mixture has the consistency of pudding; you then eat it from the bag with a spoon. Supposedly, the taste does just as much to wake you up as the caffeine.
Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck WWII cartoons are awesome.
"Schulz!" (Daffy the Commando)
Bread made from sawdust and bacon-scented perfume are a hoot. But that's what it was like in the US and especially Europe - *everything* was in short supply.
I was born in 1946. My mother, an Army nurse, never gave up her love of instant Nescafe. As a kid, I was allowed Postum which was a grain based coffee substitute during the war and after. I love it to this day but it's very hard to find.
I appreciate that you used a clip from Greyhound. It’s such an incredible yet underrated movie.
Bill Mauldin (the American wartime cartoonist) had one cartoon where three officers in a jeep are glowering at an enlisted man (clearly the driver) who is holding one of what was, by implication, another in a long succession of matches under his metal cup. The caption reads: “I just ain’t worth a damn in the morning without a hot cup of coffee.”
Not just coffee, chocolate is also one of the essential rations for soldiers.
Though theobromine is not as powerful as caffeine. (Their chemical structures are quite similar)
Helps that M&Ms were virtually created for them, and was eventually marketed to the public after.
Caffeine and theobromine are both xanthines
Original Dunkirk and Sink the Bismarck clips. 👍👍
Kelly's Heroes in there too.
Fascinating data. Thanks.
And it's cool to see a clip from "Kelly's Heroes." I love that film. 😊
"Woof Woof".
@@lilblackduc7312 "That's my other dog imitation.". :-)
4:30 Pervitin has the nicknames Flieger-Marzipan and Panzerschokolade.
Those are different things. Fliegermarzipan was just what they called Pervitin tablets.
Flieger-/Panzerschokolade was Scho-Ka-Kola, a chocolate with added caffeine.
Hausfrauenschokolade were pralines with Pervitin, ment to help you lose weight and keep the house work going.
Calmly talking about the germans using meth while theyre bouncing around a table on chairs was the funniest thing ever lmao
What movie was that?
The issue I have with coffee and caffeine is that is a FANTASTIC stimulant… unless you use it daily and have a built tolerance
My ship was in the yards in Philadelphia in 1975. There was a coffee shortage in the civilian world at the time. We in the engine room got a 20 pound can of coffee every week whether we needed it or not. It was decent coffee too. We had a locker full of these huge, impossible to hide cans of coffee. Yet the yardbirds stole every one.
Excellent work, Johnny Johnson!!
Gert Fröbe played German army Sergeant Kaffee kanne or Sergeant Coffee can in The Longest day, the German non-commissioned officer on his horse with coffee pots and kettles. Very nice video John!
you can still buy Schokakola in German supermarkets today :)
Still as potent of lamed down? Are there EU or US equivalents?
One can buy it internationally online at varusteleka. I really enjoy it.
@@WayoutthereIt's the still the same formula, as it never contained Pervitin. People mix that up quite often. It's just chocolate with added caffeine. The only thing they changed, they made them into individual pieces, so you don't have to break them apart.
There were pralines with Pervitin sold, but that was not Scho-Ka-Kola.
Watching Johnny's video while sipping on a cup of coffee makes for a good start of the day. ☕
Telly Savalas also drank real coffee in "Escape from Athena" So angry it was REAL coffee. That he smashed Claudia Cardinale's coffee cup.
Leutnant Braun!
She got her coffee from Lieutenant Braun.🥲🦜
Anthony Valentine as Major Volkmann: SS officer, the town commandant drinkes his drinks his tea with biscuits in that movie.
I once dated a girl who came from Tennessee. Her grandmother still made chicory coffee, she called it "blockade coffee;" it was seen as part of their Confederate heritage.
Johnny, only a drip who don't know beans could say you don't work hard to educate and entertain us. This one in particular really perked me up.
You can still buy coffee and chicory mixture in South Africa.
Love the movie clips you're using to illustrate your text. Very apropos, all o them. Especially the dinner scene with Germans riding their chairs.
3:54 Thanks, Johnny! I’m going to use that word as often as I can now, regardless of context!
This was quite enlightening to me on the point about amphetamine use in Germany. Many TH-cam videos will call out Germany's usage of amphetamines, but not the context behind their reliance on amphetamines vs. naturally caffeinated drinks. I have no historical knowledge upon which to judge, but Germany's lackluster supply of coffee being the reason for amphetamine reliance makes a lot of sense. Also didn't know that Japan had utilized amphetamines as well (Germany is usually the only one cited).
Keep it up and love how informative and punny your videos are in a ~5 minute format.
Americans and British I believe used Benzedrine . Pretty sure about that. If it was sold in like the old cigarette machines I would have a problem😅
That is much like comparing a mouse to a weasel!
Yesssss one of my favorite aspects of ww2 era soldiers life coffee it was everything from a pick me up to a morale booster my favorite coffe scene has to be from sands of iwo jima
pls never get rid of the puns at the end, I love em' :)
Great job, great content, great illustration.. as usual! Cheers from France!
Coffee or mud with dandruff and spit?
Better than Commonwealth bitter leaf water.
@@michaelandreipalon359True I hate dirty leaf water. 🤢
@@stadtbekanntertunichtgut I said "bitter".
I know, it's from "Blackadder goes Forth" Pvt Baldrick also use a sludge under his nose.
There's a scene in the WW1 movie "The Lost Battalion" where the Americans throw coffee grounds into their morning cooking fires to spread the scent and trick the Germans into an attack/ambush.
Coffee makes you stay up at night when you are in patrol because sleeping makes you feel like there’s an ambush coming
Coffee replaced alcoholic beverages in the US Navy during the First World War period--caffeine addiction in the US Navy was a self-inflicted wound.
The visuals with this presentation were well done.
That video was a nice pick-me-up this morning. I enjoyed w a nice coffee.
Thank you for documenting this bit of World War II trivia.
I wish all content was like this. Informative and entertaining without dragging it out and milking it for length.
Great job Johnny.
Thanks for your content
1:03 My Mom was a kid during WW2 and told me about the ration stamps. People used to trade them, gasoline for tobacco among others. Illegal but quite common.
Amazingly informative video which I highly enjoyed.
Also, the "punny" send off @ the end was great !¡!
Nicely done. In my old squadron we had a giant coffee dispenser that poured out what looked more like drilling slurry than coffee, but it had to be refilled several times per day.
One thing you missed about the British side: our tanks are specially equipped with water heating units, which soldiers to this day use for making tea whilst on duty.
Inka: A Polish ersatz coffee. It looks and measures like instant coffee. With sugar and milk it shockingly mimics instant coffee. I'll have two big mugs a day - perfect for the afternoon/evening/night (Folger's real coffee in the morning/noontime).
It generally comes in a glass jar or paper can with red and white colouring and red plastic cap.
4:39 Incredible editing 10/10 subscribed
Your videos make me truly happy
For those who are curious, Scho-Ka-Kola is still available both as the original dark chocolate recipe, and a version with milk chocolate. Even the packaging is close to the original, except certain "symbols" are obviously no longer present
One thing that the US had that other Allied and Axis Nations didn't have, was an extensive list of Coffee alternatives well known thru-out the US. New Orleans and its Chicory Coffee with Cafe du Monde being the most famous and still available, the use of Wheat Bran & Molasses found in Utah's Postum, both were readily available on the US markets. As for Tea? That Boston Tea Party? The Tea that was dumped was grown in South Carolina, and its still grown there and elsewhere in the South. If you can find it, its some of the best Tea (in my opinion) around. Just harder to find. Finally, my second time at sea on a Carrier (CV-59 USS Forestall in 1986), our squadron requested and received from Ship's Stores a tin of Coffee. 2 Feet Tall, 18 x18 inches square, about 30 pounds of whole roasted beans from 1943 (with leafy Coffee plant branch, unroasted, with leaves, we think they put that in to provide a bit of humidity) and the can was perfectly intact. There was no grinder on board as far as we knew, so, we did the same thing as they did in 1943...improvised. Fill up the old 5 pound coffee with beans enough to a pot, and use a steel bar (2 feet tall, about 4 inches wide round bar) to pound the beans. Aircraft Carriers flooring up on the O3 level is about a foot thick and make a perfect anvil. So shattered beans brew just as good as ground, and since the beans had been aged vacuum packed... and possibly in cold storage all that time... the beans shattered pretty good and within the day the entire ship knew we had a can of coffee from 1943 and EVERYONE on the ship showed up for a cup. Needless to say, those who came begging pounded Coffee to get a cup. Even a huge can like that was almost all used up within days until our Chiefs said "No MORE, go get your own! except for the ship's CO/XO, Air Boss, or Supply Officer, those guys were Golden and could cage a pot if they wanted it.
Bravo Johnny! This so rocked
allies: germany, what you doing?
Germany: meth..
Allies:WHAT THE FU-
meth.
Finland: give me some
80s america: actually, I want some
@@angeloluna529 government:NUH UH
Moustache man: I am gonna quit smoking!
*later*
Himmler: what are you doing mein furher?
Mustache man: meth
The world seemed to have become more addicted to caffeine and sugar because of this world war.
Still, didn't stop folks like the British from awaiting great guests because a tea stalk floated up on their drinks.
The puns at the end are almost as good as the content, keep it up mate 🙂
Great content!!
My first cup of coffee was age 27. Trapped in a railroad switching tower for three days during a Iowa blizzard 1979. Today I still work drink a cop before going to work and one cup half thru the shift. Love the smell in the morning.
My father served in the Pacific where, according to him, their coffee came from Australia and was mixed with chicory root. He hated it and would let us know when commercials for coffee with chicory would come on the TV.
He also had learned to drink his coffee black. You could find coffee just about everywhere you went, but hardly ever was there anything to put in it (eg, creamer or sugar). An airman who had served at remote Arctic sites said the same thing, so you always carried packets of sugar, non-dairy creamer, or hot chocolate mix in your parka.
I protect my coffee from the household like i went to the new world and gathered it myself.
Hi my name is Bob and I'm a Caffeinoholic! ☕☕☕
....Oh BTW Johnny you are getting really creative with you dad jokes. Keep up the great work!
It sounds like Johnny needed some more coffee! A+++++
Love your videos Johnny. Good jokes at the end. 👍
There was a finnish soldier who accidentally ingested the entire platoon's worth of Pervitin and proceeded to vanish for two weeks, tripping balls and losing his equipment, burning a cottage, encountering(and scaring off) a soviet patrol, beating trees with his bare hands, and stepping on mines.
He survived and lived to tell what he could remember of his two week adventure hopped on meth in freezing winter forests of northern Finland.
Nescafe is a popular coffee here among the working class in the Philippines, even in the scorching heat didn't stop us from drinking
Great video!
German Ersatz coffee was often made from acorns. It lacked the caffeine hit but had some nutritional value. Concentration camp prisoners sometimes received acorn coffee as part of their (usually meagre) diet.
Very interesting indeed. Thank you.
AWESOME VIDEO!
1:39 I can just see The Donald rationing himself 😼😂
Interesting fact: the instant coffee supplied to the military was formulated with 3x the normal amount of caffeine.
I bet the british scouts are enjoying tea just watching Germans km away
"Ah, a tea stalk floated up, my dear chap. Guess a great guest is coming to meet up with us sorry messes."
@@michaelandreipalon359 "shall we need biscuits before our guest come ey mate?"
Given Britain doesn't use km I doubt it
@@BadgerOfTheSea because I lived in Asia we used km to understand and I know ww2 history sometimes
Putting the pun in punishment at the end.
There's a clip from the 1991 Gulf War ground invasion where a U.S. Calvary Officer is giving a briefing to the press well into the 100-hour ground invasion. For a moment he drifts off into a tangent about his laundry then snaps back to the briefing stating "Oh, it's just the pills kicking in". Though not issued across the force, so-called "Go Pills" can still be issued to ground combat units whose battle plans include excessive sustained operations.
As an Infantryman we routinely trained in a sleep deprived state, going for days sometimes a week or more on little to no sleep. I have personally experienced short "Moments" of hallucinations after 3+ days without sleep. One that stands out is carrying on a whispered conversation with a fellow Soldier while pulling security at a short stop from the march, only to finally realize I'd been talking to a bush beside me the whole time. It's this kind of training where you find your limits, both physically and mentally.
My 2 cents on it.
SSG. U.S. Army (Medically Retired) Infantry / Sniper / SOF Intel (SOT-A), multiple tours
Definitely explains why everyone I know that was in the military became coffee addicts especially the Navy and marine vet's.
Very well done video as always. Are you gonna do a video on the history of the M16
Will do! Soon!
As a civilian mariner let me tell you, merchant shipping would cease if either Heavy fuel oil, duct-tape or coffee ever ran out.
Keep up the content
Ah! With caffeinated World War II beverages, my dad recalled that Coca Cola was a constant presence where he was stationed in a US Army division HQ in Europe between 1944 ~ 1945.
The clip on the last bit perfect encompassed how I felt with your puns
Awesome out-tro!
That coffee and sandwich from saving private ryan always looked so god
"Were to have access to unlimited tea, when possible."
🤣💦
Coffee paste sounds like the perfect fix. Espresso on the go!
I got a real buzz from that, thanks Johnny!
I watch all your videos. You ain't no ersatz youtuber.
Please make a video on bearskin hats worn by the royal guards/grenadiers. Good video.
The apocryphal story goes that US soldiers stationed in Italy supposedly weren’t fans of the super strong espresso favoured by Italians so they diluted them with hot water to make a milder drink in line with filter coffee
The resulting drink was thus known as an Americano
I had no idea there was a singular word that could so well describe the coffee from donut shops in the midwest. "muckefuck"
Most allies from retires know this, but others prefer own favourites.
Life.
Sippimg coffee as this popped up on my caffeineated feed. 😅😊
The dad jokes at the end. 😅😊💪🔥👍
4:24 Nice!