US M1942 ARMY MESS KIT INCLUDING UTENSILS VIETNAM

  This is an original 1966 M1942 type mess kit with origiinal mess kit utensils inside. fork, knife, spoone and a can opener.  The mess tin has the markings etched on it's handle:  I-1-M& 1966, DSA-400-67-C-0099-TR530 and all the utensils have maker marks either SKOCO  or U..C.C.O.

The U.S. Army's flat oval M-1942 wartime-issue mess kit was made of stainless steel and was a divided into a two part pan-and-body system. When opened, the mess kit consisted of two halves: the deeper half forms a shallow, flat-bottom, designed to receive a meat ration, the meat portion of the prewar canned "Reserve Ration". This meat can body, with its folding handle extended, can double as a crude skillet. The Mess Kit Plate (lid) is even more shallow, and is pressed to form two compartments, with a center divide wide enough to accommodate the folding handle. The plate also has a very secure ring that is held in place by friction.

The utensils were stored with the mess kit, but it was important to keep noise down so the could not just be thrown in the pan. Some rucksacks or packs had slots for the utensils sewn in so each item could be slipped into its own noiseless fabric slot. Another idea was to wrap the fork, knife and spoon in a sock. 

In the years prior to WW2, two factors influenced the design of the U.S. Army's M-1926, M-1932, and M-1942 mess kits. First, unlike most other armies of the day, the U.S. mess kit was designed to serve men queuing in feeding lines and served in unit formations from large garrison-type field kitchens when not in actual daily combat operations. Secondly, U.S. soldiers in the field were never expected to either forage or to completely cook their rations, even in daily combat or frontline service. Instead, when not used as a serving tray for company-size or larger units, the mess kit was used to re-heat pre-measured servings of the canned Reserve Ration. After 1938, it was used for the new C-ration, a canned combat ration with several menu precooked or dried food items.