Uncategorised Army sack help?

[Troy Tempest]

Good evening gents!

 

This just arrived, and I'm wondering if anyone here can tell me is it a mail sack or some other kind of sack? Can anyone tell me what the letters mean or stand for? I was guessing the letter H was for Heer? With these sacks, and I've seen others with different years on them, is there a front and a rear?

 

Thanks again!

 

 

[Bernhard H.Holst]

Hello Troy

The abbreviation stands for "Heeres Verpflegung"  or army victuals/foodstuff. Of course you were right about the "H". Whether the one or the other is front or rear escapes me because I have no experience with items such as this.

Mt guess as to the different years listed on these bags, my guess could be the year of manufacture and the possibility that these bags had to be taken out of use after so much use. Perhaps because of contents being foodstuff?

Greetings from the still snow covered  Mid-West of the USA but mercifully spared the severe weather prevailing elsewhere. Except a snow storm a week ago which brought us 17 (seventeen) inches of the white stuff.

Bernhard H. Holst

Edited February 9, 2015 by Bernhard H.Holst

[Troy Tempest]

Thanks Bernhard!

 

I'll just take this opportunity to post a completely off-topic photo of life in the southern hemisphere in February, yesterday actually, at Warriewood beach, Warriewood, New South Wales, Australia. The yellow stuff is sand, the green/blue stuff in the background is warm water, and the big yellow ball in the blue sky is called "the sun". Check it out and weep northern hemisphere suckers! (in the nicest possible way of course)   

 

Thanks again Bernhard!

 

[Jock Auld]

You might find if you turn it inside out it is marked identicaly, a Geman pal told me they were mostly used for grain and such like so when you tipped it out you could turn it inside out and it was properly empty and at the same time ready to use again? I don't know if that is accurate or not but it would fit, that or that there was always a property mark visable so you couldn't nick any? I have a couple like that, bit whiter material usually but on the whole the same thing.

Edited February 9, 2015 by Jock Auld

[Hoss]

Hello

Very nice original I too used to have a bunch of these, be careful of wartime copies:

 

Eric

ps Australia! you lucky blighter !!!

[Troy Tempest]

Hi Jock and Eric

 

Thanks for the replies, Jock, I will look inside the sack this weekend and see if it's marked on both sides. Eric, what do you mean about wartime copies? Were these illegally made during the war for criminal purposes? How would you know if it was a copy or not?

[Hoss]

Troy

I meant modern made with W2 stamps, heck these go way back I even had an Imperial one dated 1880's a lot of countries used them, probably still do. I agree with Jock back in the day you didn't want to be caught pilfering even so much as a sack.

 

Eric

[aussiesoldier]

Gentlemen,

 

Apart from the fact that the beaches on the Central Coast of NSW are the world's best  . . . 

 

If the sacks contained grain, etc.  Could they not have been designed to transport fodder and feed for horses.  The Wehrmacht relied very heavily upon horses for transport for much of WW2.  

 

Just a point from sunny NSW, Australia!

 

PS  When in Cadets we were issued sacks like this and put hay in them as palliasse mattress