One Man's Meat

With the occupation of Morotai and the strategic end of the New Guinea campaign, the U.S. presumably has two more major jungle campaigns before Japan is beaten : the Philippines and the cleanup in Burma. But after two and a half years of jungle fighting, U.S. jungle equipment is still far from perfect.

Clothing. "Zoot" suits -- the green-and-brown camouflaged apparitions worn early in the war -- have been discarded by the Army (marines still wear them). Nowadays soldiers wear a two-piece jungle uniform made of green herringbone twill. Because medics insist, it is thick enough to keep out mosquitoes and leeches; because chemical-warfare officers insist, it is gasproofed. Result: a hot, heavy uniform which makes men sweat like stokers, fails to dry out overnight, often fails to give its alleged protection because men simply cannot abide being smothered while fighting for their lives.

Quartermasters are now testing 1,000 new lighter-weight poplin uniforms in Burma.

Shoes. Green canvas leggings, usually prescribed, chafe so badly in the steaming jungle that troops on the march throw them away, tuck their pants legs into their socks. The canvas jungle boot, which may also be worn, does not chafe but its rubber sole provides no arch support on long marches. The eventual solution may be a boot-shoe with nylon uppers and cleated rubber sole--if a way can be found to make the cleats stay on.

Rations. Jungle-fighting Japs can carry a 15-day supply of rice, which they mix with fish, bamboo shoots, water ferns, etc., but U.S. soldiers must tote monotonous K rations--and a 15-day supply would weigh 38 1/2 pounds. Hence rations often have to be dropped in the jungle from planes, with the consequent danger that the enemy may spot the locations and gauge the strength of U.S. columns.

The Quartermaster Department is planning improved packaged rations. Maybe rice will also be provided, now that rice has been weevilproofed (TIME, Aug. 28).

That the problem of jungle equipment is still far from solved is nobody's fault in particular. Natives of the jungles learned through the centuries that the best clothing was no clothing; the best shoes, no shoes; the best rations, whatever grows in the jungles. But the white man, with his civilized stomach, his vulnerability to ringworm, malaria and leeches, is far from being acclimated.

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