True stories from my father: the first of a series

I posted this over at Cafe Hayek in a thread on a wartime propaganda extolling government rationing:

My father was stationed at the end of the war at an base in Massachusetts. I don't know which one, but it served what was then called the Army Air Force, and it was used to house German POWs. The POWs were used for various work, including serving meals to American officers. One reward for kitchen duty was eating any leftovers.

My father, a warrant officer, observed one of "the dirty krauts" open a can of pineapple, dump it on a plate, and proceed to eat it all by himself. To us today, that's no big deal, but keep in mind back then that such tropical fruit was very hard to get! And here was the enemy, enjoying what was a mostly unattainable luxury for Americans (unless you were wealthy enough to get some on the black market).

I should add, this wasn't an already-opened can left over from the officers' meal. This was brand new!