United States Military Chocolate - The Logan Bar or D Ration

The Logan Bar or D Ration

The first emergency chocolate ration bar commissioned by the United States Army was the Ration D, commonly known as the D ration. Army Quartermaster Colonel Paul Logan approached Hershey's Chocolate in April 1937, and met with William Murrie, the company president, and Sam Hinkle, the chief chemist. Milton Hershey was extremely interested in the project when he was informed of the proposal, and the meeting began the first experimental production of the D ration bar.

Colonel Logan had four requirements for the D ration Bar. The bar must:

1. Weigh 4 ounces (112 g)
2. Be high in food energy value
3. Be able to withstand high temperatures
4. Taste "a little better than a boiled potato"

Its ingredients were chocolate, sugar, oat flour, cacao fat, skim milk powder, and artificial flavoring. Chocolate manufacturing equipment was built to move the flowing mixture of liquid chocolate and oat flour into preset molds. However, the temperature-resistant formula of chocolate became a gooey paste that would not flow at any temperature.

Chief chemist Hinkle was forced to develop entirely new production methods to produce the bars. Each four-ounce portion had to be kneaded, weighed, and pressed into a mold by hand. The end result was an extremely hard block of dark brown chocolate that would crumble with some effort and was heat-resistant to 120 °F (49 °C).

The resultant bar was wrapped in aluminum foil. Three bars sealed in a parchment packet made up a daily ration and was intended to furnish the individual combat soldier with the 1,800 calories (7,500 kJ) minimum sustenance recommended each day.

Colonel Logan was pleased with the first small batch of samples. In June 1937, the United States Army ordered 90,000 D ration or "Logan Bars" and field tested them at bases in the Philippines, Panama, on the Texas border, and at other bases throughout the United States. Some of the bars even found their way into the supplies for Admiral Byrd's third Antarctic expedition. These field tests were successful, and the Army began making irregular orders for the bars.

With the onset of America's involvement in World War II after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the bars were ordered to be packaged to make them poison gas proof. The 4-ounce (112 g) bars' boxes were covered with an anti-gas coating and were packed 12 to a cardboard carton, which was also coated. These cartons were packed 12 to a wooden crate for a total of 144 bars to a crate.

Colonel Logan had specified that the D ration taste only a bit better than "a boiled potato", believing that if the chocolate bar tasted good, troops would eat them casually instead of waiting until they needed them for an emergency meal. As a result, the D ration was almost universally detested for its bitter taste by U.S. troops, and was often discarded instead of consumed when issued. Troops called the D ration "Hitler's Secret Weapon" for its effect on soldiers' intestinal tracts. It could not be eaten at all by soldiers with poor dentition, and even those with good dental work often found it necessary to first shave slices off the bar with a knife before consuming.