How clean (hygienic) were the troops in WW2?

[dgfred]

How about Air Force... if they made it back?

[Egorka]

Originally Posted by Jose50

The navies of WW2 probably had the cleanest conditions. Onboard laundries and showers depended on the size of the ship and except for very small units (subs, patrol boats, etc) most sailors enjoyed a relatively clean existence.

Except for the submarine crews, right.

[Paul Mann III]

Is there any truth to the film scene in which clothes were buried in snow to drive out the lice?

[MonsterZero]

There is a documentary on YouTube that says one of the reasons Rommel's Africa Corps had massive rates of disease (Rommel himself was frequently bedridden with stomach and liver pains) was because the Germans pooped all over the desert, whenever they stopped. Feces attracted flies, flies got into rations, next thing you have is dysentery, with hundreds of German soldiers out of action without firing a shot.

British rules pertaining to sanitation were very strict. If a soldier had to poop, he had to dig a deep hole, then put an improvised latrine over it. The latrine was usually a wooden box or a crate with a hole cut in the center. If you wanted to save the latrine for later, you had to cover the top with a tarp of piece of canvas to keep the flies out.

The picture I'm showing below would be actually a pretty sophisticated latrine. In actual combat conditions a soldier could build something much faster and simpler.

[DARKPLACE]

I've read somewhere, I think it was John Foley Iron Fist, that the British Army used some French and Belgian breweries as bases for bathing units after D Day. Something to do with the ready access to big boilers you could get enough hot water for everyone to get clean and while they were bathing their uniforms could be steam cleaned to kill lice.

[AdrianE]

George Blackburn's book "Guns of Normandy" has a passage that addresses this. IIRC he wrote from mid June to end of July he hadn't had a bath and was infested with lice.

[redcoat]

Originally Posted by Stryker 19K30

What was the standard issue of socks and what was the actual issue? .

In the British army the socks were made of wool while in the US army they were cotton, and according to some sources this may explain the high incidence of trench foot and other foot problems suffered by the US forces in the Northern European campaign during the winter of 1944/5 when compared to the British forces.

[Paul Mann III]

Originally Posted by MonsterZero

There is a documentary on YouTube that says one of the reasons Rommel's Africa Corps had massive rates of disease (Rommel himself was frequently bedridden with stomach and liver pains) was because the Germans pooped all over the desert, whenever they stopped. Feces attracted flies, flies got into rations, next thing you have is dysentery, with hundreds of German soldiers out of action without firing a shot.

British rules pertaining to sanitation were very strict. If a soldier had to poop, he had to dig a deep hole, then put an improvised latrine over it. The latrine was usually a wooden box or a crate with a hole cut in the center. If you wanted to save the latrine for later, you had to cover the top with a tarp of piece of canvas to keep the flies out.

The picture I'm showing below would be actually a pretty sophisticated latrine. In actual combat conditions a soldier could build something much faster and simpler.

Reminds me on the stories of Grampa Mann's parachute regiment in North Africa, eating fast with one hand while the other hand constantly bats flies away from the meal, to avoid dysentery.

If one fly landed, you were screwed because the second it takes to get rid of one allows five more to land.