soc.history.war.world-war-ii

On Thu, 27 Mar 2008 13:56:51 -0400, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

>*Apparently portable stoves and heaters used to burn gasoline, not
>kerosene as is done today. I presume kerosene is used today since
>it's safer than gasoline. I remember in the book "Catch 22" they had
>a gasoline heater in their tent.

Good heavens, no! A kerosene hotplate was standard cooking surface
during the summer months in the 1930s and 1940s. Winters, we had a
kerosene unit installed in a black-iron Glenwood range, to heat the
kitchen, and my mother cooked on that.

I never ran into gasoline as a cooking fuel until I began backpacking
in the 1950s. And that was "white gas," not automotive octane.

If the military used gasoline, I suspect it was to eliminate the need
to ship kerosene wherever soldiers went. As to the safety issue, well,
they were at war!

Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

Claire Chennault and His American Volunteers, 1941-1942
new from HarperCollins www.FlyingTigersBook.com