Food parcels
By the end of World War II, over 20 million standard food parcels had been sent, by the Joint War Organisation of the British Red Cross and Order of St John of Jerusalem, to British and Dominion Prisoners of War.
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The parcels were carefully chosen to give the best dietetic value and to supply elements that were lacking from prison camp diets. The parcels, usually sent at the rate of one man per week, weighed approximately eleven pounds and contained, according to availability, some or all of the following items:
- 1/4lb packet of tea
- tin of cocoa powder
- bar of milk or plain chocolate
- tinned pudding
- tin of meat roll
- tin of processed cheese
- tin of condensed milk
- tin of dried eggs
- tin of sardines or herrings
- tin of preserve
- tin of margarine
- tin of sugar
- tin of vegetables
- tin of biscuits
- bar of soap
- tin of 50 cigarettes or tobacco (sent separately)
Seventeen centres located around the UK and staffed by volunteers packed up to 163,000 parcels each week. The Joint War Organisation had eight ships under permanent charter, with others standing by, to transport the parcels on the first stages of their journey to the prison camps.
The majority of these ships operated a shuttle service between Lisbon in neutral Portugal and Marseilles in the south of France. At Marseilles the parcels were transferred to railway vans under the supervision of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Through the French and Swiss postal services, the parcels finally reached Geneva, where the International Committee of the Red Cross arranged for their distribution to prison camps in Germany and elsewhere. | |
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