My father was in world war II 47th regiment 9th division infantry. He was cook. I am trying to find out any information about the cooks. He went from Utah beach to Germany Dachau where he was an interpreter

Cooks did just what you'd think they did--they cooked.

You hear about C-Rations and K-Rations all the time--field rations which could be issued to individual soldiers when field feeding wasn't a possibility due to the tactical situation.

But in reality, the Army preferred to feed A-Rations and B-Rations when they could. And that's what your father would have been preparing. 

A-Rations were what you'd normally find in any dining facility in any mess hall. Everything is fresh--fresh meat (or frozen, or refrigerated--you get the picture), fresh eggs, fresh fruits and vegetables--everything is fresh.

B-Rations were prepared using canned or otherwise pre-prepared (powdered, dried, etc.) food products-canned meats, powdered eggs, canned fruits and vegetables, generally in those large cans you'd see in any restaurant in the states. If fresh fruits or vegetables were available on the local economy, B-Rations could be supplemented by adding those items to the menu. So you might have a fresh salad if lettuce was available, but your fruit might be canned peaches in heavy syrup.

B-rations were also available in what was called "10-in 1" backages, designed to be issued to a squad, that could be prepared by the squad along the front line. But a cook wouldn't be involved in preparing those.

Whenever a unit could--if the line was stable, for example, if they were in the defense, or had been pulled out of the line, then the company's cooks would prepare meals for the company--transporting them to the platoons that were on the line in insulated containers if they had to.

C- and K-rations would be issued if the unit was going to move out on offensive operations. They were individual rations, so solders could eat them when they had a break in the fighting, and weren't dependent on the company's cooks to get food to them.

As for serving generals, there are two possibilities--the first is that they visited the 47th Infantry Regiment and ate in the mess he was a cook in--and therefore "he cooked for Patton."

The other possibility is that, if he was a good cook, he might have been "appropriated" as borrowed military manpower and was working for at least a while in the Division Commander's personal mess.

Thank you so much. I know he was a very good cook. yes he said he cooked a dinner for General Patton and three other generals. It was right before the Hurtgen Forest battle. He was Hungarian and made them a Hungarian Dish. 

Then I'd suspect if he wasn't borrowed on an extended basis, they grabbed him for that one particular meal. Maybe the division commander had eaten in his mess and said, "boy this stuff is good," and when he heard Patton was coming, said "get that guy from the 47th up here. The one with the hard to pronounce name. We need to put out a good spread for Patton."

Thank you again. I like your thought process in helping me piece together the General Patton dinner. It sounds very logical. Also, he cooked for a General Craig near Remagen Bridge? He was only a tech 5 when he left in December 1946. They wanted him to stay and continue to cook. Is there anyway to find out if he was borrowed on an extended basis? He wrote poems about Utah beach, St Lo, the Hertgen Forest, first combat, The Wine seller in Remagen and soldiers. I have his service record. Not much information in it accept battles and medals.

Major General Louis A. Craig commanded the 9th Infantry Division from August 1944 to May 1945. It was probably him.

Thank you again. His service record shows Headquarters Forward Echelon 9th division 47th regiment. Is there any where I could get details about that? His name was Elmer Nicholas Smith.

julieAlex 

Thank you for posting your question on History Hub!

It seems our community has provided good resources for you to consider. In addition to those suggestions, you might want to consider the information below.

If you are interested in doing research on your father’s units, the Textual Reference Archives II Branch (RR2RR) has custody of unit records for the 47th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division. We searched the National Archives Catalog and located the World War II Operations Reports, 1940-1948 in the Records of the Adjutant General's Office, 1917 - 1985 (Record Group 407) and located records of the 47th Infantry Regiment in boxes 6490-6507. For more information about these non-digitized records, please contact the National Archives at College Park - Textual Reference (RR2R) via email at archives2reference@nara.gov.

We hope this assists you with your research! 

Sincerely,

Textual Reference Archives II Branch (RR2RR)

[RR2RR 25-00643-VVT]

thank you for the response Im going to look into it.