Malt and Myanmar (Part II)

Beer on Wheels

Today I record a further story of beer, Burma and World War II. It has to do with trucks delivering beer to the front lines. Not just any beer – beer brewed en-route.

The arrival of the British in 19th century Burma, now Myanmar, was the consequence of three wars and a complex history.

By 1885 Upper and Lower Burma were under British control, the lower part having been secured by mid-century. The usual colonial pattern followed: establishment of British trading houses and banks, plantations, garrisons, private clubs – the Pegu Club in Rangoon, famously. Cricket grounds, breweries, churches, and more.

In the Second World War, beer produced a story so outré a novelist could have conceived it.

It circles round the so-called mobile brewery, introduced by Lord Louis Mountbatten (1900-1979). Mountbatten was the Supreme Allied Commander, South East Asia Command between 1943 and 1946. The mobile brewery he promoted is associated especially with Burma, although similar may have been fielded in other theatres.

The beer was meant strictly for forward fighting units, not rest and recreation centres or other rear areas. This contrasts with the American army beer in Nice, France in 1945 that I discussed earlier.

 

 

The mobile mini-plants were first publicized in 1943. Burma had been lost by then to the Japanese. Allied raiding, bombing and other harassment were in progress, with a land invasion planned. It started in late 1944 and culminated with victory in April the following year.

A story in November 1943 in Australia, originating in Britain, stated a 15-cwt truck was equipped with mash tub, boiler, cooler, and fermenting tub. It took three days to make the beer, whose shelf life was as long.

It was said the yeast contributed vitamin B which probably softened the message for readers concerned about providing beer to soldiers (on moral grounds, that is).

 

 

Further details can be gleaned from the article “Mobile Brewery at the Front” by Edwin J. Kirschner, a retired U.S. Army officer and historian. It was published in August 1991 in Defense Transportation Journal, Vol. 47, No. 4 (via JSTOR, so paywall or institutional access).

Kirschner first gave an impressive, concise account of how Japanese forces overran Southeast Asia after the Pearl Harbor attack. He stated further:

At this juncture, the Allied forces in Southeast Asia were not winning. Mountbatten’s first offensive was to instill a winning frame of mind into his men by putting some fresh morale-building activities to use, such as films, theatrical shows, news bulletins, periodical publications … and a mobile brewery.

Kirschner added that Mountbatten entrusted Lt. Gen. Sir Reginald Denning with executing the traveling brewery plan. Reginald Denning was a decorated, long-serving soldier. By that time he had an administrative command. He was of the famous family that included senior members of the Bench and Royal Navy.

Getting the mobile breweries to the field was, it appears, the immediate responsibility of Major-General Hugh “Alf” Snelling. See this Australian news account in 1945. It emphasizes the great importance of supply and services in warfare, of which this beer provision was part.

Published histories on the 14th Army in Burma and on Snell’s outstanding work in logistics confirm his role for the breweries. See e.g. the biography (2013) of Field Marshal Viscount Slim by Russell Miller.

No taste notes for the beer seem to have survived, or perhaps these lurk in an obscure government archive. Similarly for the design, testing, and implementation of the scheme.

A reasonable supposition is the army took technical advice from British brewing circles. It would not have been easy then to brew something good in a hot climate with a simple apparatus mounted on the bed of a jouncing vehicle, even if some type of extract was used.*

The only advantage I can think of in the tropics was, the beer would ferment fast, hence perhaps the three days mentioned. If drunk as quickly, it probably didn’t sour, that much could be said for it, in all likelihood.

For Part III, see here.

Note re images: the first image was sourced from the Wikipedia entry “India in World War II”, here, and is in the public domain. It pictures Indian infantry in Burma. The second image, of a 15-cwt (3/4 ton capacity) Bedford truck, is from Wikipedia as well. It was sourced here, and believed also in the public domain. All intellectual property in both belongs solely to the lawful owner, as applicable. Used for educational and historical purposes. All feedback welcomed.

*The press account speaks of vessels for mashing and boiling. On its face this suggests conventional brewing, but it seems unlikely to me some type of malt or hop extract was not used.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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