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5 ´ No Beer! It had been a very good day for Master Sergeant Elmer Franzman of the Headquarters Squadron, 329th Service Group, who was by June 1944 in India. This young man from Cannelton, Indiana, had served in England, North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and now in India, in the China, Burma, and India theater of operations. He wrote to his parents, “We received our monthly issue of beer today and we were really surprised. Each man received one case (24 bottles). That is the largest issue to date, and am satisfied to know I’ll have refreshments to do me a few days. It’s a good brand too, Pabst Blue ribbon, but some was Schlitz, which is just as good.”1 Sergeant Franzman had every reason to be happy with the beer allotment, but back in the United States there was a critical shortage of beer for AES exchanges. By the spring of 1943 and well into 1944 the sources of beer dwin‑ dled severely. The exchange officer of the Desert Training Center at Coachella, California, sent an urgent memorandum to the 9th Ser‑ vice Command in San Francisco. “At the present time through every source known to us we are receiving approximately one-half of beer needed to reasonably serve the troops for which we are responsible. . . . In addition we would appreciate advice from your office as to possibilities of further consideration should we furnish the names of other suppliers who are anxious to serve us should requirement malt be made available.”2 One can only imagine that in the heat, which could reach 125 degrees, and the tough conditions of desert training, morale problems were caused by a lack of beer. It did not matter if the higher headquarters of the service commands or the staff of the AES 77 78 Chewing Gum, Candy Bars, and Beer were asked to find new sources of beer. There were no other sources of beer for the military or for civilians. The PX system grew at a rapid rate because of the increase in the num‑ ber of troops being trained for deployment overseas. Red flags were raised in the summer of 1943 when it became clear that certain mainstays of the PX—cigarettes, candy, dental items, and beer—were becoming difficult to obtain. When there should have been an expansion of those manufac‑ tured comfort items, there was a reduction in output due to circumstances outside of the AES. Master Sergeant Franzman wrote to his parents, “The next time you send a package enclose a few valet razor blades, and a few tubes of Colgate toothpaste and some Vaseline hair oil. The PX is short on these items and my supply is about out.”3 One of the pillars of American life, Coca-Cola soft drinks were in short supply as well due to a shortage of cork, which was then used to line the caps. The stress on the AES was great because the exchanges had to serve troops in the United States and in a rapidly growing number of overseas bases and staging areas, which had a priority for PX goods. It was a simple matter of numbers. For example, the number of American troops in En­ gland training for the cross-Channel invasion increased dramatically as the 4th Infantry Division arrived in January 1944, the 9th Infantry Division landed in September 1944, and the 66th and the 76th touched ground in 1944. The 17th Airborne Division began training in England in August 1944. Some units, such as the 26th Division, went from the United States directly to France. There was a massive increase of American Army Air Force personnel as well. For every soldier in combat, there were four to five support personnel from the Quartermaster Corps, the Transportation Corps, and the Medical Corps, and these units had their own exchanges. Despite shortages, the American GI seemed rich and very well supplied when compared to the strictly rationed British. The same was true of the Pacific theater and in posts from the Caribbean to Africa and Iceland. The USO also felt the stresses of shortages, and so did the Special Ser‑ vices Division that depended on the AES for many supplies. As early as late March 1943 the USO requested that the organization have access to Army and Navy commissaries to save them money and ensure an ongoing supply of cigarettes, candy, chewing gum, and soda fountain syrups and drinks. In a letter to the Special...

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