Feeding The Troops was Big Business

Heroes Remember

Feeding The Troops was Big Business

It's a big business running a war. You had two hundred men and all the meals and everything, everybody got the same stuff. You just send in to the ration stores the number of men you had and multiply them by all the things that were on there, 1/237th part of an ounce of salt or something like that and multiply that by a thousand and you got a couple of ounces of salt, that's the way they ran it, you see. Every Canadian soldier in England or France or whatever it was would get the same supply of rations. Now what the cooks did with it was something different.

Mr. Burton describes the precision with which rations were given out to the troops.

Robert Burton

Robert Burton was born on February 21, 1896 in Dundas, Ontario. After public school, he was accepted into university which he attended from 1914 to 1916, in the Canadian Officer Training Corps. For a time, he worked at Massey, checking shrapnel shells. Despite being shortsighted, Mr. Burton was recruited into the 13th Brigade in Mar, 1916. In England, he joined the 5th Division, a reinforcement unit, and deployed to France with the 2nd Division as a sapper. Mr. Burton became a mounted courier at Courcelette, and had several interesting experiences in that capacity. He witnessed and was attacked by Gotha bombers at Arras, and was shelled at St.Pol. Mr. Burton also served in the trenches at Amiens. During the 2nd World War, he was a very successful engineering instructor at camp Petawawa, where he attained the rank of Major.