Spam Wartime Facts-- Part 2: Even the Top General Ate It

**  One person wrote:  "Spam became  a substitute for real meat and, for years after the war,  one of my favourite foods.  We served it up as batter-fried fritters or just grilled thick slices of it and served it with chips.  Genuine Spam became a luxury compared with  cheaper substitutes, most of which came from Denmark."

**  In wartime Britain, a 10-ounce tin cost 12 ration book points or 1 shilling and sixpence in old money.

**  100 million pounds of Spam were issued as a Lend-Lease staple in rations to American, Russian and  European troops during the war.

**  GIs called Spam "ham that  failed the physical."

**  The Red Cross parcels that were distributed to POWs in Germany contained Spam.  A can of Spam could be traded for  three packs of cigarettes in the camps.

**  President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in a letter acknowledging the role that Spam had played in the war, stated that he ate his "share  of Spam along with millions of other soldiers."

The letter was sent to retired Hormel president H.H. Corey in 1966.  A copy of the letter is on display  in the World War II section of the Spam museum.

--GreSpam

Some Spam Wartime Facts-- Part 1: Uncle Spam and Spam and Salad

From the World War II Encyclopedia.

**  SPAM was used as a "B" ration -- to be served in rotation with other meats behind the lines overseas and at camps and  bases in the States.  However, at times, GIs were eating it two or three times a day.

**  SPAM was incorporated into the language of the war.  Uncle Sam became Uncle Spam.  Food supply depots were  Spam Canyons  One military base in the Pacific was called Spamville.  A photo of it showed the word Spamville written on its makeshift watertower.  There is a replica of the base at the Spam museum.

**  Throughout 1943m Hormel hired  448 women to replace men who had gone to war.**  Soviet Union leader Nikita Krushchev wrote, "Without  Spam we wouldn't have been able to feed our army.

**  The British really liked the Spam they received.  Margaret Thatcher, then a teenager,  remembered opening a  tin of Spam on Boxing Day (an English holiday observed the day after Christmas).  She stated:  "We had some lettuce and tomatoes and peaches, so it was Spam and salad."

--GreSpam