 From Korea, to Germany. From Alaska, to Puerto Rico. All over the world, the men and women of your army are on the alert to defend our nation, you, the American people, against aggression. This is The Big Picture. Welcome to The Big Picture, presented by your United States Army. I'm Captain Carl Zimmerman. Enough and on time. That's the story we tell you today, the story of the Army Quartermaster Corps. First, we'd like you to meet the Quartermaster General of the Army. Speaking direct from Washington, D.C., here is Major General George J. Horkin. Thank you, Captain Zimmerman. It's a big story to tell in the Quartermaster Corps. For hours it's a vast and many-sided mission. Stated briefly, the job of the Quartermaster Corps is to assure that the American soldier continues to be the best fed, the best cloth, and the best equipped fighting man in the world. We have worked with producers of The Big Picture to bring you pictures showing some of the more representative jobs of the Corps. We realize that the job of developing, procuring, and supplying all of these items, plus the services provided for the troops of by our Corps, cannot be capsuled into a half-an-hour program. But the show to follow will hit some of the high spots of the Quartermaster operation. I sincerely hope that the highlights of Quartermaster operations to be shown here will serve to alleviate any qualms felt by the wives, mothers, fathers, and other relatives of our fighting men about the food, clothing, equipment, and treatment they receive as a part of our national defense team. And now, here is your Quartermaster Corps. You can bet there's quite a difference between cooking in your army and cooking at home. The problem here is not just to please pop in the kids, but a matter of satisfying a million different appetites. That means over 10 million pounds of vitals every 24 hours, since five pounds of food are required daily for each soldier. Now, putting that much food on a platter so it looks and tastes good and pleases everybody takes a heap of planning. Take the meal that's being served today. It doesn't just happen this way. Your army started to plan this menu about eight or nine months ago. One of the first steps of planning is to find out what's good to eat. In Chicago, the heart of the nation's food production belt, your Army Quartermaster Corps runs continuous tests on food and menus to make sure they are palatable as well as practical. A modern approach to a balanced diet has replaced the less scientific standards of earlier days. Today, everything new in army rations from a brand of peaches to a new cake recipe goes through scientific trial. These cooking experts are trying out a new way to make dressing to go with roast chicken. Looks good, but that's not enough. It must be tested before the recipe can be passed. The food is put on a turntable which leads into the next room. Here, we find the testers. These taste-conscious folks grade the various foods and recipes according to flavor. Each tester picked for the job has already passed through a test of his own to make sure his taste buds are keen. The testers work are air conditioned and scientifically lighted so the odor and color of the food will not affect the verdict. When the results are added up, if the dressing for roast chicken has won a passing grade, many cooks in Army mess halls will be dishing it out some months ahead. Nutritionists and food experts of the Office of the Quartermaster General are now working on the new master menu which suggests the composition of every meal for every day of the coming year. In the planning stage, every meal is balanced for its nutritional value according to standards set by the Office of the Surgeon General. Once it is set, the master menu is distributed to all Army installations six months in advance. Only those soldiers who have requested it are assigned for training in the Army food service. Once they qualify, they are taught every trick of Army culinary art which certainly comes in handy for a soldier returning to civilian life. Though bread baking nowadays is done almost entirely by professional bakers, these soldiers quickly learn to turn out a tasty loaf. The bulk of bread eaten by soldiers today is a product of Army bakeries. Here's a jumbo-sized steam cooker that has passed Quartermaster laboratory experiments and is now making its appearance in many Army kitchens. This is a new airplane oven designed to heat frosted food for flyers. After only a few minutes in the oven, out comes an entire meal piping hot and ready to eat. The new radar stove bakes a potato by electronics in two minutes flat, a steak in exactly 40 seconds. Storage and preservation of food is a particularly important consideration. Here's a gadget your Army uses that wraps food in airtight envelopes that protects against spoilage. This group of super chefs is trending at the advanced school service course in Fort Lee, Virginia. They're learning the finer points of culinary skill which they will in turn teach to Army cooks. The menu changes every day and so everybody's favorite has to appear on the mess hall table every so often. If it's bacon and eggs for today's breakfast, wheat cakes and bacon will turn up tomorrow. Typical of three consecutive suppers are roast pork, roast beef and salmon patties. The final test of an Army meal is how much the soldier eats of what's served on his tray and that is answered by the record which shows that most recruits gain several pounds during the first weeks of service. It is also answered by information from the clothing service of your Army Quartermaster Corps which tells us that during the first three months many recruits turn in their uniforms for a larger size. It is a responsibility of the Army Command to provide the best fit possible from its stocks and if the fit is not satisfactory to arrange for individual alterations. Provision is made for competent tailors to make the alterations necessary to give the uniform a good fit and appearance. Each private feels proud and looks snappy in that class A uniform. A recruit is issued a complete set of clothing suitable for his needs. Sun tans for summer and ODs for winter. Clothing for the tropics. Field outfits with two pairs of pants, wool inside, cotton outside. The new Arctic uniform complete with parkas. At a quartermaster laboratory in Philadelphia clothing fabric goes through a rough obstacle course. In one experiment the cloth goes through a machine that tests how strong it is by pulling it apart and measuring the resistance. Another machine rubs the fabric against an emery cloth to see how it stands up under wear. There's a flexing machine that puts a sleeve through the wear and tear a soldier in active field training would give it. Still another gadget pounds water into a fabric to determine how much dampness it will absorb if worn in the rain. The main objective of quartermaster research is to develop a cloth that is fireproof, waterproof, and wind resistant. At the Climatic Research Laboratory in Lawrence, Massachusetts a group of volunteer guinea pig soldiers wear the uniforms under all sorts of tests for their durability and protectiveness. Some march in a room where the temperature has been dropped as far down as 60 below zero. Under their uniforms the volunteers wear thermocoupled harnesses to measure body temperatures at every point. No matter what the temperature of the atmosphere may be the human body must stay at about 98.6 degrees. If not the man won't be on his feet for long. When the ultraviolet and infrared lamps in the hot chamber go on the temperature zooms to as high as 130 above zero. Jungle clothing should afford protection against vegetation and insects and yet permit cooling by allowing body moisture to evaporate. At the quartermaster testing station at Fort Lee, Virginia soldiers try out clothes for rainy weather. For a really grueling test, quartermaster has an obstacle course rigged up with rain machines. The rainfall can be adjusted from a drizzle to a downpour so the shrink resistance of new materials can be studied. One of the items given special care in testing is footwear. Combat boots must take plenty rough wear. Your army supplies a variety of shoes for different climates and activities ranging from the low quarter tans to shoe packs. Quartermaster research in leather assures foot comfort and a perfect fit for each soldier. Fit. Now that's quite an undertaking. When you have millions of men to clothe, the human body comes in a surprising number of shapes and sizes. Your army has to figure pretty far ahead to have the right size for every soldier at the right place and time. The right fit not only enhances the soldier's appearance but it also prolongs the life of the clothing. Inside and out, no soldier of any army is supplied, clothed and fed as your American fighter. You can be sure that he has everything he needs for his personal maintenance thanks to your army's storekeeper, the Quartermaster Corps. Again, we point to Korea as an example of how our army is doing its job today. With us on the big picture are two officers of the Army Quartermaster Corps. Colonel Russell K. Keuns, who was with the 8th Army in Korea as Deputy Quartermaster and Captain Cecil W. Hospitalhorn, who was with an aerial supply company in Korea. Colonel, we'd like to ask you a question first. How was the food in Korea? I think the food in Korea was very, very good. As a matter of fact, I'll go as far as to say that the American soldier and the United Nations soldier now fighting in Korea are the best fed soldiers in the history of combat operations. How did the Quartermaster make this possible? Initially, we were only able to supply canned rations such as corned beef hash, corned beef, and the well-known spam. Since that time, however, with refrigerated warehouse space being made available to us we are now able to furnish what we call A-rations, which are fresh fruits and vegetables, fresh meats, such as frozen beef, pork, ham, chicken, turkey. And we're also supplying fresh fruits and fresh vegetables which are grown in Japan in the chemical farms there and flown daily to Korea. Well, that sounds like the food situation is well taken care of, Colonel. How about clothing and equipment? There's no doubt about it that the American soldier is the best dressed and the best equipped soldier in the world. We have been responsible for supplying some of the other United Nations with our equipment and the minute they saw it, it became very much in demand. This equipment, of course, is furnished to other United Nations on a reimbursement basis. Well, now Colonel Footwear has been a problem for the Army here and there and Footwear for the frontline soldier. Have we solved this problem? We, in an attempt to solve the problem, have issued and introduced to Korea the new insulated combat boot, which keeps the soldier's foot much warmer and also is much easier for the soldier to march in. Talking about winter clothing, we started on the 1951 Winter Clothing Program long before the 1950 winter was over. In July of 1951, the 1951 clothing was beginning to reach Korea from the United States and from Japan. And by phasing the shipments forward, we were able to get all of the winter clothing items required for the winter campaign into the hands of combat troops by the 15th of October this last year. We even used Captain Hospital Horn's unit in delivering some of the items. And that unit that you're talking about now is the 8080 First Quartermaster Aerial Supply Company, wasn't it Colonel? That's right. And Captain Hospital Horn, you can tell us about that. What was the mission of this company? Our mission was to deliver to all units in Korea equipment and supplies of all classes by airdrop when other means of supplying them were not available. We would receive those supplies, temporarily store them, rig them for airdrop and we would load them in the aircraft and fly with them to perform the ejection over the drop zone itself. Now you've seen a lot of airdrops in Korea. Which one stands out in your memory more than any other? Initially, when we arrived in Korea, we supported the airborne drop of the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team. We dropped the supplies for them, the quarter ton trucks, three quarter ton trucks, the largest piece that we dropped was the 9,000 pound, 90 millimeter anti-tank gun. I believe the most interesting, however, was the drop of the bridge in the chosen reservoir. Tell us about that operation. We received a message from the chosen reservoir that they had a bridge they wanted to drop. And I left with three men on the equipment that I thought could drop any type bridge that they could fit inside of the C-119 type aircraft. You were dropping a complete bridge. That's right. What did they need this bridge for? There was a section blown out of the mountain, the mountain road in the chosen reservoir that they needed to, they needed this road to withdraw from that area. That was the only withdrawal route that they had at that time. Now, how did you make this drop? The bridge itself was an M2 treadway we found out after we arrived in that area. It was in eight sections, each section weighing approximately 4,000 to 4,500 pounds, some 18 foot long. We decided that we would drop them individually in sections from eight aircraft. The total weight, of course, being some 32,000 pounds. That's throwing a lot of stuff in the air. That's a lot of bridge. They got the bridge okay, didn't they? They got the bridge and I understand they left that area over that withdrawal route in about 24 hours. Good. Well, Captain Hospitalhorn, now let's watch through the eyes of our signal corps cameraman, aerial supply in action. A battle is being fought. Our men are pushing ahead sure and fast. It looks like we're ready to chalk up another victory. But wait, something's happened. This gun isn't firing anymore. Everything is at a standstill. Tanks, trucks, machine guns, men. They're all idle. Why? Why this abrupt change of pace? The answer is painfully simple. This unit has run out of fuel and supplies.