Article about: The Evolution of the IJA Mess Kit 1874-1945 Foreword It’s been 7 years now since I started to write the evolution series on the Japanese army’s personal gear. I have covered almost every
It’s been 7 years now since I started to write the evolution series on the Japanese army’s personal gear. I have covered almost every piece of equipment a collector would need to complete a full kit, everything except the mess tin.
I have been well aware that a thread on mess kits was the only remaining topic to plug the hole in the series, but I just couldn’t bring myself to research an item that, to my prejudiced mind, seemed so boring with so little change to talk about. But however tiny that pebble may have been, having that in my shoe to remind me of work undone, finally made me write it.
So here it is, the last thread for the field gear evolution series. To my pleasant surprise, there actually was a lot more to talk about than I initially expected and even a myth or two to bust, so I hope you’ll enjoy the read.
1874, the first overseas excursion to Taiwan for the IJA
The Taiwan campaign of 1874 seemed to have been a trigger that made the IJA aware that soldiers needed to be kitted out to be self-sufficient in the field, during military operations.
Before this excursion to Taiwan, the military mindset was totally focused on defense of one’s allocated territory, centered around former castles, just like in the Samurai days. But the Taiwan excursion forced the troops to spend time away from home base for extended periods.
Thus the earliest document I could find that referred to mess kits and canteens is dated July 1874, still in the midst of the Taiwan campaign, and by October of that year, the army had official guidelines on how much weight in supply a soldier was to carry on his person and how much could be left to transport troops.
This document, dated 4th October 1874, said a soldier was to carry 340 匁 (Monme) or 1,275 grams of food, enough for two meals, on his person in a container weighing 130 匁 (Monme) or 488 grams, totaling 1,763 grams .
This container had the weird name of 面桶, that the IJA pronounced as “Mentsuu”, which by today’s norms sounds totally out of this world to a native Japanese like me. 面 means face, and 桶 normally read “Oke” means pail or basin, so a native Japanese of today can only imagine that this meant “washing basin”, and never imagine this was how they called a mess tin back then.
Weight wouldn't ring a bell for those of you living on bread or pasta, so let me attempt to translate in a way your stomach can understand.
One Onigiri (rice ball) sold today at a Japanese convenience store, like say Seven-Eleven, weighs an average of 110 grams a piece, so the content of this two-meal mess kit was the equivalent of 12 rice balls. At my age, 3 pcs at most is a belly full, so 6 pcs per meal is a very generous portion, even for a youngster.
No wonder that even farm boys used to say in those days that they ate much better in the army than at home.
By the way, these triangle-shaped Japanese Onigiri in convenience store style (in special pull-away cellophane wraps that keep the seaweed covering crispy dry) are now even sold here in German supermarkets.
When my wife triumphantly came home with one for me to try, I felt as though I had travelled back home to Tokyo. But the first bite told me something was wrong and I could barely finish it. The Germans had salted the whole rice mix, instead of the real Japanese style of embedding a small piece of salted salmon or pickled plum, etc in the center of unflavored rice.
Anyway, this experience has now permanently scratched off Onigiri from our shopping list, at least in Germany.
Getting back on track, 6,600 pcs of these mess tins were shipped out in July 1874, and considering that the expedition to Taiwan consisted of 6000 men, the IJA seemed to be scrambling to have this shipment catch up with the troops already there since May.
By December 22nd of 1874, the IJA could announce to all its Chindai outposts (predecessor of the later Divisions) within Japan that a full set of personal campaign gear developed for field outings such as a mess kit made of tin (ブリッキ面桶), canteens, etc was planned for production to supply all members of the IJA soon.
The IJA called the tin metal sheet used for the manufacture of these mess kits “Buriki”, which is said to come from the Dutch word, “Blikje”, meaning metal can.
This “Buriki” was initially written as ブリッキ (Burikki) in 1874, then as 武力 (normally pronounced, “Buryoku”, meaning “Brute Force”, but also possible to pronounce as Buriki, which obviously was the intention here) in 1878 and soon after, as ブリキ, as we spell it today.
A native Japanese of today would be baffled to be exposed to the IJA’s 1878 written lingo for mess kit, which written as “武力面桶”, can only be interpreted as “Brute Force Wash Basin”, when they actually meant, “Tin Mess Kit”.
It was crudely made of tin sheeting, and though no specs are available, surviving examples are coated in black lacquer to prevent corrosion. It’s shape was not hugely different from the WW2 version, but noticeably absent was the swiveling handle we are used to seeing on modern ones.
They needed no handles, because they were never too hot to the touch, being only a lunch box and not having the cooking pot function of later mess tins.
A memo dated 27th March 1883 introduced new nomenclature for army equipment in which, finally, the modern word 飯盒 (hangou) appears to describe a mess kit. A footnote to this document explained that what is referred to here as 飯盒 is what used to be referred to as ブリキ面桶.
It is only thanks to this single footnote, serving as the “Rosetta Stone” that I was able to trace the mess kit’s origin back to 1874, having realized that I needed to switch my vocabulary for the document search.
With the launch of the second generation fur-covered backpack in 1887, a new weight assignment list of infantry gear was issued, which now said that the mess kit was supposed to carry only 1 meal of rice, weighing together with the container, a total of 1001 grams, a reduction of 762 grams (6 Onigiri rice balls less) from the 1874 model.
This size and capacity reduction actually must have happened back in 1883, when they changed the word for mess kit. When comparing the words 面桶 against 飯盒, 盒 has the nuance of a smaller container with a lid, which is the same kanji used for the Type 38 ammo pouches. In comparison, 桶 is suggestive of a somewhat larger container.
Thus they must have changed the wording to coincide with this switch to a one-meal compact size. At this point, we finally have an official illustration of how this mess tin looked like, as the instructions for the new back pack illustrated how the gear was to be strapped to the pack.
This was the setup with which the Japanese Army entered the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95.
Last edited by Nick Komiya; 04-24-2022 at 03:19 PM.
In 1895, the 6th Infantry Regiment issued an equipment improvement proposal based on their experience in the Sino-Japanese War.
They requested a cooking pot in copper to be developed and have each company be issued with at least 50 of them. This was because the tin mess kits could not be heated up for cooking meals.
Such a copper pot would hold the mess kit inside and this could further be strapped to the backpack. The report added that this would only add 300 grams of weight to an infantryman’s kit. Their proposed idea was the illustration below.
Last edited by Nick Komiya; 04-24-2022 at 03:24 PM.
The army responded to this on 13th November 1895 by requesting units to suspend further orders of mess kits and canteens, because new models in aluminum were being developed and that evaluation samples will soon follow.
This was followed by an announcement on 7th May 1896 that those aluminum sample mess kits and canteens have been prepared by the Osaka Artillery Arsenal and were ready for evaluations on capacity, etc.
Development objectives of this new mess kit was primarily to address the shortcoming of the tin version, which could not cook, and further being prone to damage due to the flimsy tin material.
The following 5 factors were regarded as critical features.
1. Light weight. Aluminum was found to be 1/3 the weight of steel and 70% lighter than copper.
2. Durability against impacts and compression. Aluminum proved to be satisfactorily robust.
3. Being able to withstand boiling and cooking heat. Compared to other metals suitable for cooking, aluminum showed no problematic delays in heating up, and it also had no risk of developing rust even when cleaning after cooking could not be so thorough.
4. Non-toxic material. A 25th Sept. 1896 report submitted to the Minister of the Army by Gen. Maj. Gentaro Kodama, as the chief of the equipment improvement commission, explained in detail how extensive tests were conducted using various liquids and acids at various temperatures and durations of exposure with the conclusion that aluminum presented no toxic risks in cooking use. Some tests using acid did produce negligible amounts of black soot-like sediment, but this was found to consist mainly of iron and was nonhazardous.
5. Readily obtainable, inexpensive material. Aluminum was a metal that had to be imported, so cost was unavoidably higher than steel or copper. However, it was mentioned that there was reasonable room for cost reduction by importing in higher volumes.
Other shapes such as pot-shaped versions were also considered and tested for how long it took to cook. Also paint finishes were tested for heat resistance and cooking speed.
Actually white paint was found to bring water to a boil quicker, but considering exposure to the enemy in the field, they settled on a matte black finish.
Another change they made was to revert back to a capacity of two meals. The thinking behind this was that 2 men teaming up to cook together could cook rice for two in one mess kit and a main dish in the other. Also, when the situation required carrying 2 meals, all in one container was more practical.
Shelf life was also expected to be several years longer than the tin model. And a further advantage over tin was that aluminum could be recycled even when it got old.
At this time, in Sept. 1896, they only had hand-made prototypes, so manufacturing cost was high, but this was also expected to be greatly reduced through machine production.
This, however, became a sticking point, as these machines needed to be imported from Germany, but a workers’ strike at the German factory would cause the introduction of the aluminum gear to be delayed by another two years, until the announcement shown below, dated 21st October 1898.
The IJA were ahead of the German army in the use of aluminum kits !
As I wrote in the canteen thread, I had always thought that Japan’s introduction of aluminum canteens and mess kits were an idea borrowed from Germany.
The letter from a German manufacturer dated Feb. 1895, which I showed in the canteen thread had derailed me onto a wrong line of thought. That letter claimed that they were already supplying the German army with aluminum canteens, etc.
Also, the fact that the production equipment for these aluminum gear had to be imported from Germany, reinforced that chain of thought.
That firm may have indeed supplied samples to the German army and the Germans must have been a step ahead in industrial use of aluminum and manufacturing therewith, but the truth is that the German Army only fully embraced aluminum for their mess kits from 31st October 1927 (Kochgeschirr M1927) onwards and had previously been using double galvanized tin versions since 10th June 1915 (The forerunner, the M1910 did, however, adopt aluminum, but was short lived).
As for canteens, it was the M31 introduced on 23rd March 1931 that introduced aluminum, previously having been also of tin.
Thus the Imperial Japanese Army, motivated by the need to cook rice and glass canteens exploding in the extreme cold in China, had become the pioneer in the military world to adopt aluminum canteens and mess kits.
Make them last 20 years!
The aluminum mess kits were anticipated to be in short supply for some time, so only a week after the spec announcement, on 27th October, they came up with a special conservation policy in the form of handling instructions for the new aluminum gear.
1. The anticipated product life of these items is 20 years, so careful handling is necessary to make them last.
2. Although the canteen and mess kit withstand direct heating, putting them over a fire for boiling is prohibited in peacetime, unless with prior permission from the divisional commander.
3. Scrapped products are still a recyclable resource for the aluminum, so they are to be held for this purpose.
Last edited by Nick Komiya; 04-25-2022 at 10:28 AM.
The wire handle used to hang loose below the mess kit bottom, so this slack was reduced to hug the body tighter. Instead a “V” bend was added to allow room for the backpack strap to pass through.
Last edited by Nick Komiya; 04-24-2022 at 09:10 PM.
Soldiers tended to greet such innovations with skepticism, and we can hardly blame them, as even today, more than 120 years later, it is not long ago that the world was shaken by a doubt that aluminum might be causing Alzheimer’s disease.
A panic that that spread throughout the army within a year or two of adopting aluminum canteens and mess kits were rumors of aluminum dishes melting away.
The 4th Infantry Division had decided to try out aluminum as material for dishes and bowls in its mess hall. However, these new aluminum plates started to develop dark blotches on the surface after only a few days of use and longer use aggravated the corrosion to the extent that they eventually became totally useless to hold food.
Thus a worrying investigation had to be launched. Tests by the Imperial Guard Infantry and Cavalry even showed that daily use resulted in steady loss of net weight of the aluminum material, whose rate of weight decline extrapolated into 8 months of continuous use would have meant total disintegration of the container.
After exhaustive scientific lab tests, however, the final verdict came out on 19th July 1901, which said aluminum by nature did show a certain amount of corrosion, but the overwhelming benefits of its convenience as a material far outweighed its drawbacks ,and as such, aluminum was not found to be an unsuitable metal for production of canteens and mess kits.
An army manual on care and maintenance of uniforms and equipment eventually would warn not to keep things like pickled plums in mess kits for long, as the acid would corrode the metal. It further said that simply burying the sour plum in the rice would prevent such accidents with the additional benefit of slowing the spoiling of the rice.
So soldiers were conditioned to meet new technology half way. This problem was eventually solved through the discovery of the world’s first aluminum anodizing finish, “Almite” invented by Riken, a Japanese company, which finally made aluminum quite corrosion resistant, but that was still far in the future (after 1923).
Despite officially being vindicated in 1901, people continued to be wary of the imaginary toxicity of aluminum, and as the following incident will prove, even the arsenal making these products hesitated to give any ironclad guarantees.
If they could only say, “Even the Germans have been using them for years.” That would have crushed any opposition, but Germany was actually still 26 years away from adopting aluminum mess kits.
In May of 1903, Yoshinobu Tokugawa (The last Shogun, who abdicated and returned rule to the Emperor, thus ending the reign of the Samurai) made a factory tour of the Osaka Arsenal, busily producing the aluminum mess kits and canteens.
The new mess kit caught his eye and he asked whether he could have one as a souvenir of his visit. He was also shown how to cook rice with the mess kit, and when he tried it at home, he thought the rice tasted even better than what his kitchen provided.
However, at a later date, he would ask the chief of the arsenal, as an afterthought, whether cooking rice in this aluminum mess kit had any negative impact on health.
The arsenal had to admit it was still early days for this new innovation, so they did not have enough data to guarantee complete safety in comparison to metals like silver. So what did Yoshinobu do? He provided silver to the Osaka arsenal and they made him a silver mess kit, which the former Shogun would use to personally cook his rice.
Last edited by Nick Komiya; 04-24-2022 at 03:38 PM.
The Evolution of the IJA Mess Kit 1874-19
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