New ration pack in Vietnam DPR/TV/1084

Australian soldiers in South Vietnam are getting the first issues of a new lightweight ration pack for use in the field. The new pack, which weighs less than half (1.25 lbs against 3 lbs) the pack now in general use has, as its two main items, freeze dried meals. They are quickly prepared. As soon as a patrol through a rubber plantation in Vietnam gets the word to stop for a break, troops unpack their ration pack. After setting up their portable cook stove, they add water to the freeze dried meals and, using the pack as a cooking utensil, heat up a meal in a very short time. In addition to the new type basic meals, the new pack has done away with many of the old type hard-tack biscuits. In the latest rations there is only one small packet of these. Other biscuits are raspberry crunch and currant luncheon. Cheese, sugar, lollies, coffee, powdered milk, a plastic spoon, toilet paper and a rubber band go to make up the new pack which costs 1.93 dollars compared with the 1.38 dollars for the old pack. (Also identified: Section Commander Lance Corporal Wayne Peters of Bexley, NSW; machine gunner Pte Mitch Oddy of Campbelltown, NSW; Cpl Patrick Odell of Broadmeadow, Vic).