Germany, September 1947: An unidentified staff sergeant of the Fourth Air Force of the U.S. Air Force shows the food rations for one U.S. service member stationed in Germany. The photograph — with a list of the exact month ration’s quantities — ran in the Weekend section of the European Stars and Stripes on Oct. 4, 1947. It illustrated an article explaining to the apparently grumbling dependent wives of service members why the shelves of the commissary don’t seem to hold what they want and the produce and eggs are not always fresh.

With food production and food distribution in civilian Germany still suffering from years of war, food for the service member — and the ever-increasing number of dependents that arrived — had to be shipped from the United States. The original caption noted that the allotted 3,700 calories per day, per service member cost the Army approximately 95 cents.

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