The Wilmington morning star., 1944-03-06
Bv F.. H. JETER

By F. II. JETER
The battle of Stalingrad stands
as one of the great, critical bat
ties If history. It will rank per-
haps along with Gettysburg, or
Waterloo, or Kings Mountain, or
one of those other desperate strug-
giles on which hinged the fate OF
nations and people. A Russian
general, who fought at Stain
grad, was in the United States re-
Gently and he made some interest"
ing observations about the bat
tie. Among them, he said that the
Germans in their desperate re-
treat abandoned huge stores OF
munitions of all kinds. They left
behind great fields Of tanks and
trucks and enormous supplies OF
oil and equipment - but they new
er abandoned food.
This general observed with
great clarity the decision Of thosc
ruthless leaders who have built
one Of the greatest fighting ma
chimes the Wor.o has ever seer.
t'e had seen ore of the creates
demonstrations in all history Of
the force AMI the value of arms
and yet he noted that aae Ger,
mans were rccdv to abendon ev-
srythi'.g bu. f,.od. MOI only did
they take their twn fooo supplies
with them but, as usual, ey raw.
aged the countryside of it's entire
food supply shat those left free
from their slavery might re-. suf-
fer { N malrutrition.
That's the German way. They
learned from World War l about
food because that war left its
mark on the young Prussians who
were needed by the generals for
another war. The Germans regard
food as weapon of war. They
withhold it to have their COM
mands obeyed and they supply it
to reward their quislings. Foc the
use of their. own people they steal
every ounce that the conquered
countries can produce above a
starvation level. Waste of food is
not forgiven. Therefore, was
greatly interested in some re-
marks made by Marvin Jones, fed
eral food administrator, the other
day in telling about dinner party
in midwest state. There were
81 persons at the tables and when
they had finished the meal they
scraped all the edible food from
the different plates and weighed
it. 1t added up to exactly II
pounds wasted by the 81 persons
at that one dinner. That was
abandoned food, Judge Jones
said.
eve have always abandoned
some food in Americ"," he added.
Historically, we have been so
blessed among the peoples of the
earth with such an abundance Of
food that we have naturally be-
come somewhat careless and
wasteful. We have collected figures
recently throughout the natio~ and
have found that we have been
actually wasting at least 20 per
cent of all the food produced in
this country"
If Judge Jones is correct, as we
must presume that he Is, then we
waste one pound of food Of
every five that we produce. This
is said to be enough to feed the
combined populations of Greece,
Czechoslovakia, Norway and Bel
GUM. At the various colleges
where young men are being train
ed for the various branches of the
armed forces, the Experiment
Stations have been making a
study of food waste and nutrition.
So far, these studies indicate in
81 colleges where the studies have
been made that from one-half to
two-thirds of a pound of food per
student per day is being wasted.
No wonder the All club leaders
of America are calling upon the
young farm people to produce
more food. L. R. Harrill, club
leader in North Carolina, has fig
ured out that more than "a million
meals day are needed to feed
the men in armed forces. He says
that every farm boy and girl of
club age, from 10 to 20, should
join in the All club plan of feed
ing fighter this year.
It should be kept in mind that a
large portion of the men in the
army came from the farms. They
have been accustomed to eating
rather full meals and they "gripe"
when they do not get the kind of
food they want. Now that so many
of them have gone from the farm,
the boys and girls of club age
are about all that are left to han
d." IS job Of food production.
The week of March 4 to IL has