Australian Army Catering Corps - History - World War II

World War II

In July 1939 Sir Cedric Stanton Hicks, a prominent Professor of Human Physiology and Pharmacology at the University of Adelaide was appointed the District Catering Supervisor of the 4th Military District in Adelaide. This appointment proved to be a peculiar quirk of fate for the Australian Army, as it brought a scientist into direct contact with the feeding problems at its most important point, the kitchen. He took practical steps to ensure that the essential nutrients were included in the ration scales and were retained throughout the cooking process to be consumed by the soldier.

Hicks noted that the Cookery Schools were having a very difficult task trying to train sufficient cooks from the unsuitable personnel offered up by units to provide satisfactory messing in the many training camps which had been established all over Australia. He recognized that to improve the feeding of the Army it was necessary to get good soldiers to be cooks. Improve the standard of cooking equipment used in the field and in barracks, improve the standard of training with a more scientific approach and improve the quality of the rations made available to the soldier.

There is an old Army saying, "It is not what you know, but who you know." This certainly applied to Hicks. His first task was to raise the standard of the cook. He did this by recruiting catering managers direct from the civilian industry. He wrote proposals and gained support to have suitably qualified cooks paid a tradesman rate and to be promoted. Seems normal enough today, consider the opposition at the time though. When the proposal to upgrade suitable trained cooks to the rank of Sergeant and Corporal was circulated one senior officer actually wrote as one of his objections that the presence of these Sergeant Cooks would be embarrassing to the Sergeants Mess.

Through Hick's influence barracks kitchens were upgraded with a new type of cooker the static Wiles steam cooker being introduced into the service. After a lot of submissions he and the Wiles family were finally able to persuade the Australian Army to use the Australian designed and built Wiles Mobile Steam Kitchen too. Training was improved and instead of soldiers traveling to Cookery schools mobile training was commenced with cookery instructors going to the units. Ration scales were improved through the introduction of additional commodities selected for their nutritional value.

In 1942 Hicks, now a Lieutenant Colonel, put up a proposal to form the Australian Army Catering Corps. As expected there was initially considerable opposition, however eventually this was approved and on 12 March 1943 the Australian Army Catering Corps was raised with Sir C. Stanton Hicks as its first Director of Catering.

Hick's philosophy for the formation of the Corps then and it remains true today is "The primary function of the Catering Corps is to ensure the most efficient use of rations and through that provide the maximum health and stamina to the troops." Out of this philosophy the Corps got its motto "We Sustain". The AACC is a service that provides an extension of the Commander's power to discharge in detail his/her responsibility for the feeding of the soldier. AACC personnel are first and foremost members of the unit they are posted to. Catering personnel are "detached", not "attached".

With the formation of the Catering Corps the shortage of cooks was reduced. At the conclusion of World War II the AACC Corps strength was 17,600 cooks.

After World War II the Army downsized and what was known as the Interim Army came into being. In 1948 the Directorate of Catering was disbanded and the Catering Corps came under the control of the Directorate of Supplies and Transport the Royal Australian Army Service Corps. This was considered a retrograde step as the supplier of all the rations in effect technically dictated catering policy to the cooks, customer satisfaction was guaranteed, as it was difficult to complain about quality etc. to your superiors. The biggest task for the AACC at this time was providing catering staff to serve in Japan with the British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BOCF).