Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Thanksgiving at MCAS El Toro, 1945

Happy Thanksgiving! Today I'm posting images of the 1945 Thanksgiving menu from MCAS El Toro. (As always, click on any image to enlarge it.) This menu comes from the collections of CSUF's Center for Oral & Public History. To get an idea of how busy the base was during the war, take a look at how many mess halls were operating!
It looks like they had quite a spread. Hope it tasted as good as it looked on paper.
You'd think it would be harder to have a spirit of thanksgiving during times of war, economic depression and hair-raising governance. But such times have a tendency to focus us -- as individuals and as a country -- and make us appreciate what's most important. And as one colorful Orange County transplant likes to say, "Tough times never last. Tough people do."
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Among the many things I'm thankful for are my family, my friends, and all the tough people (the Marines most definitely included) who will see us through these hard times.

3 comments:

Capt. Tomorrow said...

Wow! The mess halls supplied everything but booze. Or did they have some unofficial holiday spirits? ;)

Paul Duca said...

Actually, that was the first Thanksgiving (and Christmas) after World War II ended.

Melissa Fox said...

Thanks for the information! Shared on my Twitter.
http://twitter.com/melissajoifox