Jerry Cans: The True Secret Weapon of WWII

have you ever actually stopped to think just how incredibly well designed the Jerry canners I do think the jetty can is one of the most well-engineered and well-designed products in history and I think it's a testament to the fact that almost 80 years later every element of this design has almost gone completely unchanged now looking at it in the actual size and shape it becomes obvious why it is a very useful item it's easy to stack side by side you can put them on top of each other from the floor to the roof you can put 100 of them in a lotto you can put a thousand of them in a ship or if you're traveling a small car you can easily strap five of them to the inside or the outside if there's one person you can carry two of them one in each hand or if they're empty you can easily carry four by using these three handles one of the things that I think is always quite distinctive and unusual about the shape of the jetty can is this bubble up here at the back why on Earth is it that there is an area that can be not filled with liquid when you consider how low the spout is well that's probably one of the more clever elements of this when this is filled up to the top with liquid there's enough of an air bubble in here that if you drop it off the side of the ship fire it off the side of an airplane knock it off the side of a pier it can still float perfectly in the water more than just the shape though the actual construction of each half of the jelly can is genius because of course it is in two halves you make each half up and then you weld it down the center now this Center weld is really clever it means that you're protecting it look at all the bumps and bashes this thing's accumulated over the years but the seam along the middle here stays protected if it was on the exposed Corners it's more likely to get knocked ruptured and then start spilling liquid even more clever in this particular design you have this lovely recessed seam it means that the actual weld doesn't come above the edges of the actual can itself it means that if I was to hit this with a hammer or bash it like I have many times it's never going to rupture as easily as something that was exposed on the corners now on the actual faces of the jetty can the larger sides of it you've got these very Distinctive Designs there's two reasons behind it and both of them are somewhat related to each other for one thing it provides rigidity a bit like corrugated iron but it also allows expansion and contraction it means that when you've got a liquid in here and you take it to a hot volume it or if you take it to a very cold environment it's going to react to the conditions that it's in it's going to allow its space to expand or contract as required it's a really clever small element that gives these things a lot more strength than something of a compatible size that has just perfectly flat sides to it now I've already mentioned the handles but it's worth repeating obviously you've got a middle handle easy for cattying when it's full if maybe you're not strong enough and you need to handle two people can carry it by grabbing onto each side or if you're carrying four of them you can hook your hands under and carry 4 quite easily in two hands the other thing that works quite nicely is if you're in a big human chain and you're trying to pass dozens of these say from a resupply truck to the thing you're trying to supply well it's much easier to pass this when you've got three potential handles to grab rather than fiddling over one notice any fuel container is only as good as the spout that you can use to fill it or empty it and that's where most of the best design is saved for this is obviously long enough and wide enough that you can fill it and empty it without the use of any extra nozzles but you've got this latch now the latch can't be lost because it's actually attached to the jetty can and when you open it up one you had an airtight seal there so again if you did drop it in the water you're not going to be suffering from any liquids getting in there but also the hinge is very cleverly designed it slides down just enough that it can't fall back on its own it actually stays open by itself very small but very subtle design that makes all the difference when you're using this on its own you don't need any extra tools to open it up it's all done here for you by hand but the most clever piece of all is saved for the inside here on the inside of this nozzle here you've got a little breather tube and the best thing about this breather tube is when you pour out the air gets back in allowing a nice clean Even Flow as it pours out of the jetty can The Jetty can is a truly remarkable piece of engineering but the question remains where did it come from and how did it end up becoming so ubiquitous interestingly the answers lie in the Jerry cans Roots as a German secret weapon at the beginning of the second world war before eventually becoming instrumental to the Allies victory in 1945. that's the big job prior to the outbreak of the second world war a wide variety of containers were used for the transportation of petrol and other liquid fuels in the early days of Automotion before the widespread availability of fuel stations petrol was issued by chemists and was most typically found in a variety of square metal containers however as the use and availability of motor engines grew so did the demand for fuel and for the military the logistics of how to transport fuel was becoming an increasingly pressing concern fuel could be moved by vast oil tankers and on land by pipelines railroad tank cars and trucks but the crucial Missing Link was getting fuel to mobile fast-moving units on the battlefield easily and efficiently and with as little liquid lost or spilled along the way for Nazi Germany in the midst of a massive secretive rearmament campaign in the 1930s Hitler and his military planners knew just how important this fuel supply chain was going to be in their plans for fast-moving Blitzkrieg warfare using mechanized Panzer divisions they understood that the weakest link was going to be the consistent fuel supply in the field and keeping their newly motorized units moving therefore in 1936 an invitation to Tender was issued by the third reich's weapons office the center for research and development for weapons ammunition and Army equipment the demands were for the fuel container that was easy to store liked enough for transport minimized fuel losses and was more easy to carry and work with than the Triangular container that the Germans were using at the time the design submitted by the various companies who responded to the tender would be thoroughly tested and researched to refine the concept into the ultimate fuel container various prototypes were thrown out and altered screw caps were eliminated cylindrical designs were found to be impractical for stacking and storage the center weld was found to be the most resilient method of construction the rectangular shape found to be the most practical over the next few years these prototypes were narrowed down further relentlessly tested and trialed to ensure every single possible feature and usage was accounted for different lever action caps are tested cans were intentionally overfilled to Breaking Point to discover the structural strength of the design and the distinctive expansion ribs added to account for rigidity but it was the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War that undoubtedly offered the best test bed for what would become known as the vermacht einheit's canister and later the Jerry can members of the Condor Legion a unit comprised of Air Force and army Personnel of Nazi Germany brought with them early vermacht canister designs to test under Battlefield conditions the canister was found to be incredibly tough resilient to bumps bashes and mistreatment and what's more a plastic lining coating the inside meant that fresh Safe Drinking Water could also be stored inside and a secret wide-ranging plan to vastly increase and re-arm the German military the vermacht canister was manufactured in its thousands stored away and ready for when hostilities began in 1939 and that's what we have right here an original German vermacht einheits canister the 20 liter Jerry can as it came to be known and what's really fascinating is this one has a lot of details to it and this one was manufactured as we can see here in 1940 this is as old as you're really going to get easily when it comes to Jerry cans and ones that you're going to not find outside of a museum for example it also has a designation here as a fuel carrier um there is actually when you open up the inside of this you'll notice the inside is red this has been repainted numerous times before so this is not the original color of it and it also has a warning here that it is flammable um what's quite interesting though aside from the date of manufacture 1940 you also have this this is the Maker's Mark for Ambi Rudd this is the company that produced it now there were numerous different companies that were producing the jelly cans over the years and this company Ambi Rod were an automotive manufacturer they made quite a lot of parts and materials for the German War Industry especially obviously during the second world war they made hearts for military vehicles like the kuble wagons and things and also fighter planes as well too but they also apparently are quite a common manufacturer for these jelly cans or fairmacked iron height canisters so really quite amazing it's just such an amazing living piece of History because more than anything else you could still use this that is some paint flanking off on the inside but if you maybe use some paint stripper resealed the inside with a plastic coating you could probably start using this again there are no leaks there are no terrible rusted spots that are about to break away it still works in the exact same way that it was intended to all those years ago when it rolled off the production lines in 1940. I think the other thing that's fascinating is just how similar it looks to a modern day Jetty Cam that you can pick up in the current year if you look at this Jetty can this thing's probably or five six years old maybe 10 years old at this point it's quite a cheap example that we picked up and we use for for petrol because there is no fuel stations where I live on on my Island but 20 liters same designation it's got the same kind of debossed indentations to provide rigidity to the actual frame of it it's a little bit shorter but it's slightly wider you've got your three carrying handles on the top you've got a similar sort of latch but what I will say about this is this is far inferior compared to the original Jetty cans that I've got here the most notable thing is this one doesn't have a recessed well the weld is actually sticking right up along the top and if you were to bash this or knock it there is a good chance that the weld could pop open and it could start leaking obviously not the case with these Originals where you have the recessed weld that was designed exactly to avoid that problem this one also has a terrible latch it's always sticking this thing is as smooth as the day it rolled off the production line I'm sure and this one is also corroding and rusting away far worse than any of the examples that I have here as well too so quite interesting to see how the design has maybe not even sometimes evolved but devolved over the years as well too the Battle of France was a real watershed moment improving the effectiveness of mechanized Warfare but also the effectiveness of the Jerry can German units were often assigned a Jerry can and a siphoning hose so that they could tap any fuel tank or car that they might come across in their race towards Belgium and France however by the time the conflict spilled over into Africa the Jerry can had become less of a secret and more something that was beginning to become coveted for their allies especially the British hey everyone calm here and this is just a quick note to see that this video is brought to you today by you the people who watch comment and support all my videos and all the different ways that you do a special thanks to those of you who support me through my patreon feed and also through buy me a coffee or buy me a whiskey in my case this video is also brought to you today by my friends at share a cart share a cart is a simple free browser extension and app that lets you quickly and easily send or receive an online shopping basket so as you may know my partner and I are currently trying to build a house I'm also trying to build out my new camper van we're renovating a caravan to live in while we build the house I'm also buying all sorts of random bits and pieces for YouTube videos artworks it gets complicated okay with share a card my partner can make up baskets on Amazon or Ebay and a whole host of other supported websites and quickly send a code over to me the basket with all the items and quantities she chose pops up in my end and I can order everything with one click whether you're making up an order of groceries or an ever-growing list of parts to fix your old iPod older car you can send them over quickly and easily to other people share the cart saves quantities and items and transfers the content of a shopping basket over in seconds best of all though it's free no sign ups no annoying pop-ups just a simple yet clever plugin that makes life easier I love a product that does one thing and does it really really well and share a cart is just that so click the link in the description below where you can find all my recommended books on the subject of this video as well as my favorite Jerry cans all included as share cart links or just Google share the card and try it for yourself thanks again and let's get back to the video while the Germans were busy developing new methods of fuel transportation the British still utilized the more traditional squared off fuel containers in two main designs one of which held two imperial gallons and one which held four the four gallon container was officially known as the petrol oil and water can but gained the nickname flimsy because it was just that made of thin metal held together with crimped or soldered seams light bashes on the edges or Corners undoubtedly led to leaks with no indentations to allow expansion and a single weak handle it was a recipe for disaster the British first encountered the Germans using their Superior vamached canister during the German invasion of Norway in 1940 but it wouldn't be until the Africa campaign when the transportation of fuel and the traversal of huge distances made them a coveted prize for the Allies in the Desert War by Alan murhead murhead described their encounters with German vermach canisters and how it compared to the vastly inferior containers that they were used the Germans designed what appears to be the best petrol container for the desert flat solidly built holding five gallons it could be used over and over again known to use as the Jerry can the great bulk of the British army was forced to stick to the old flimsy 4 gallon container the majority were only used once we could put a couple petrol cans in the back of a truck two hours of bumping over desert rocks usually produced a suspicious smell sure enough we would find both cans had leaked Allied Forces soon began capturing and stealing these cans whenever they could get their hands on them which they named after the Germans or cherries as they nicknamed them and giving the can its now famous nickname after the second capture of Benghazi huge stockpiles of jelly cans fell into British hands and started being increasingly used by units such as the long-range desert group the British were in fact so enamored by the German Jerry can not only were they trying to steal them at any opportunity they could they were also trying to make their own this is a British jelly can and it comes from we think around 1940 35 however we know it's British because it has the war office Mark here on the site other than that though it is almost identical in every single way to the German Jetty can it's really quite amazing how well they managed to copy the design it has the same cam lever latch it's got the same air lock it has the same little latch here that stops IT falling down when you're pouring the same air pipe to allow the steady flow of liquid when it's being poured this one even has the same red paint on the inside the same three handles and of course one of the things that gives it the ruggedness and Longevity that same recessed weld that runs around the center of the Jerry can the British had recognized the effectiveness of the Jerry can early however across the pond the Americans were a little bit slower on the uptake one man however was desperate to prove the value of this design to American military officials and of course it would be the Jerry can that would prove so essential as the Allies raced through Europe in their approach on Berlin in 1945. early in the summer of 1939 before the German secret weapon had made its debut a couple of examples began on a roundabout journey into American hands Paul place an American engineer who had recently finished a manufacturing job in Berlin began an Overland road trip to India with a German colleague the man bought an automobile chassis and built a custom body for the journey as they prepared to leave however they realized that they had no provision for emergency water however the German engineer both knew of and had access to thousands of the newly developed Vermont canister that were being stockpiled at the templehof airport and because all cans had been manufactured with an internal plastic liner they were safe for fuel and water requisitioning three of these cans the pair mounted them on the underside of their car and set off on their Journey twice was undoubtedly impressed by the performance of this previously unknown can but as they reached India The War Began to loom and field Marshall Goring sent for a plane to collect the German engineer requesting his presence back in Germany before departing however the engineer left place with the car and the Jerry cans and even more amazingly he gave the American the complete specification for the Jerry cans manufacturer Place continued on alone to Calcutta where he put the car and the secret canisters in storage before returning to Philadelphia back in the United States price repeatedly approached military officials about the Wonder container that he had found on his road trip but without a sample the officials in charge took little to no interest blice realized he had to get an example of this vernact canister into the U.S and to avoid the possibility of the cans being stolen or removed the eventually decided to have the entire Vehicle Center via first turkey and then the Cape of Good Hope it arrived in New York in the summer of 1940 and the three Jetty cans were still intact and attached to the underside of the car place immediately sent one of the cans to Washington however the war department were unimpressed more than anything reluctant to switch to an entirely new method of liquid Transportation standards based on one stolen Design This one Jetty can in the Army's possession however was later sent to camp hollabird in Maryland rather than recognizing the design prowess of the container and later copying it exactly like the British it was instead poorly redesigned the size shape and handles remained roughly the same however the welded recessed Center joint was instead replaced with rolled seams a dangerous and inferior method of creating sealed petrol canisters and located around the bottom and one side rather than the center instead of a hand operated latched funnel sealed with a rubber gasket both now a wrench and funnel were required for its use the jetican's hidden benefit sealed into your plastic lining was also removed making it ineffective for carrying water safely this infidier copy of the can did not win wide approval and by this point the British were still relying on pilfered supplies of jetty cans rather than manufacturing their own troops continued to suffer crippling and dangerous losses of fuel through poorly designed fuel containers the situation would only start to change by the end of 1942 to Quality Control Officers posted to American refineries in the Middle East started to notice the Dismal problems with fuel handling at Allied Depots one of the officers chemical engineer Richard M Daniel explained the problem fuel arrived by rail from sea in 55 gallon steel drums with rolled seams and friction sealed metallic mouths the drums were handled violently by local laborers many leaked the next Link in the chain was the infamous 5 gallon petrol tin this was a square can of tin plate that had been used for decades to first of all Supply lamp kerosene it was hardly useful for gasoline in the hot desert sun it tended to swell up burst at the seams and leak since a funnel was needed for potting spillage was also a problem Daniel and his colleague submitted a scathing report to the naval officials in Washington on the situation they stated that 40 of all gasoline sent to Egypt was being lost through spillage and evaporation the actual statistic was a guess but it was enough to Spur officials into finally adopting what the men on the ground had been demanding for years a new 5 gallon container under consideration Washington was canceled and the British were finally ready to gear up for mass production of their Jetty can copies by early 1943 two million British Jerry cans had been sent to North Africa since the British had such a head start on their manufacture they also began producing all the cans that would eventually be required for the operation that would rely on them the most the invasion of Europe as the Allies stormed Europe The Jetty cans were everywhere an essential tool for keeping armies running mechanical filling by means of a device called the rotary cow could fill up 720 cans per hour by the time Germany was close to surrender some 21 million Allied Jetty cans had been scattered all over Europe so much so in fact that the careless abandonment of empty cans by Allied troops was beginning to result in an acute shortage of them with empties being used as stepping stones in mud or for anything other than transporting fuel the US Army eventually resorted to offering prizes to French school children for the recovery of empty Jerry cans with over a million being recovered by this method alone President Roosevelt himself observed in 1944 that without these cans it would have been almost impossible for our armies to cut their way across France at a lightning pace which exceeded the German Blitz of 1940. the original vamacht canister was essentially a German secret weapon it was a logistical tool that could allow them better than anything to storm and overrun Europe far faster than any of the Allied Powers had prepared or anticipated but what's amazing is that by the end of the conflict the copies of the canister what was known as the Jerry can to the Allies had actually become almost synonymous with the vast industrialization the resource base that the Allies wielded towards the end of the war and of course it was the essential tool for them to storm Normandy and Beyond towards the end of 1945. it's an incredible piece of design and I think what makes it all the more incredible is that of course by the end of the war millions of them had been scattered all over Europe all over the world and as a result became firmly established as the definitive fuel or liquid carrying device the design has gone relatively unchanged over the years as a result and I think it's really amazing that to this day people are still using the same Jerry can some Maybe manufactured in 1940 some 1945 and beyond for their day-to-day use whether it be carrying water fuel paraffin in the case of this one as it's labeled and I think it's really a testament to True well-tested engineering and design the jerrycan anyway who thought I could talk for like 25 minutes about Jerry cans I cut a lot at it I'll tell you that much but thank you very much for watching uh this video this is something I've been wanting to talk about for a while I will say my patreon subscribers uh are the people that basically let me make this video I bought these I bought Jenny cans I bought a lot of um various resources in the researching and the preparation of this video and that wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my patreons who supported and have been giving me money month to month that allow me to increase my budgets and fund things like this maybe one day they'll fund it enough that I don't have to be filming it in my messy garage but that's maybe something for another day but no thank you very much for watching really fascinating topic there's a lot that I didn't cover I think the most I think the thing that maybe will be outdated at some point in this video and I'll call it out now is the information about Paul place now if you guys don't remember back like five ten minutes Paul place was the American engineer um who went on that car trip to Calcutta uh with a an anonymous German friend who gave him the jetty can and gave him the instructions for how to manufacture it instead right I'm off back to Germany you have a good war and then Paul went back to Philadelphia flew the cars out now you know there's a really good article that I'll put a link in the description about the manufacture of the Jerry can and I apologize I forget the author and he did a bit of a deep dive a little bit like I have and he came to the similar conclusion that I had and I actually found the obituary for Paul place he died I believe in the late 1940s I want to say maybe 1947 for 1948 something like that before the 1950s anyway and um he in this virtually in the New York Times is listed as a as an engineer but also a very very successful businessman industrialist and he was head of Ambi Rudd the the company that manufactured this and probably one of the most important companies when it came to the manufacturer of the original vermic carrier because they were one of the companies that really pioneered the idea of the Pressed molded half shape to this that could then be welded together you know the two pressings welded in the center to create the distinctive jerrycan design now there's there's I didn't want to really include this in the kind of formal part of the documentary but the original story of him traveling to Calcutta with a friend and then the kind of plans being passed to him and him going back it's hard to tell how true that is there are some rumors that Paul may have been very aware of the Jerry accounts design in my opinion you probably knew all about it and that's how he managed to get both the designs and some examples back to America um of course the American the government didn't really listen to him uh the American war department or something wasn't really that interested and what they ended up producing was um what is known commonly as the blitz can and the blitz can I showed it in the video where the blitz can essentially looks like a jetty can but they removed um what is one of the best parts of the design of the Jay can the the funnel and the the hand operated cam latch and they replaced it with the large circular piece and it's always interesting I see that quite a lot that big circular lid the welds and rolled seams actually of course it wasn't welded the rolled seams around the top and the bottom here I always wondered what that does design walls where it fitted in for some reason when I was younger and I used to make my little kind of toy airfix models used to sometimes see those Blitz cans and I used to think they were the first iteration of the Jerry can and evolved into this and of course it wasn't until I did my research I realized this sort of uh original design of the jetty can and then the the kind of copies that were produced one of them being this um I mentioned in the video this is we think 1945 it is 1945 it states it right there on the can same as this one stating it's 1940. it is really amazing how similar these are they're almost identical um I actually think this British one is slightly better engineered um I think the latch Works a little bit better in this I wouldn't trust putting fuel in any of these there's there's quite a little bits floating in this I think the paints are starting to flake off slightly but of course one of the biggest things about this is the plastic lining and the inside really ahead of its tie and of course one of the things that allowed it to be so multifunctional you could put water and various things like that in it too and a couple of other things to shout out and I was researching this for a long time I've been recording these videos over and over again I recorded this entire video changed the script and recorded it all again and I'm talking about the intro the bits where I'm sitting on the chairs the voiceovers because I kept finding new information there is a book there's actually two books um by a gentleman Philippe I forget his second name I'm doing this all off the top of my head I'm just doing one big run-on outro because I've recorded this so many times I'll put his obviously all my sources in that are in the description below but really nice gentlemen um he wrote he's a collector of Jerry cans he wrote two books one in collaboration with um someone else about the history of the JD can I tried for three months four months to track down a copy of this book The only copy of the book I could find was a hundred pounds shipped from Canada with another 40 or 50 pounds and look I'm dedicated to my craft but I was like I can't spend close to two I'm trying to build a house so I can't spend 200 pounds on a book on Journey cans I can't do it but it has it is the definitive history on the original development the German development of the jetty can there's probably a lot of information in there that I'd love to dive into maybe there'll be a part to Jerry cans two Electric Boogaloo in which we'll go into more detail about this stuff um but actually to be honest a lot this was a little bit more surface level you know we covered the important points about the German development of it and then the British copying and the American copy of the blitz can uh but it's something I'd oh I'm gonna go see if this see if this video hits this video it's a hundred thousand views I will buy that book and on my patreon I'll do an exclusive video when I just show off the book but um I contacted Philippe unfortunately he did not have a copy of the book that he could give me um but uh he gave me a lot of really interesting information um so a big thank you to to to yourself if you are watching um if you can understand me I know I'm talking quite fast um I I don't know how good your English is but I really appreciate uh all your your help and advice uh on this but yeah really good fun really fun video really fun topic the kind of stuff that I like doing very Niche topics um before I go if you'd like to say if you like this kind of stuff uh subscribe to my patreon I might do a kind of follow-up video about these in the future because like I say there's a lot of other bits and pieces that I wanted to talk about um if you are interested in this kind of thing I've got another video that I made um about similar War objects this one even older a World War One ration tins they're not actually rashingtons they were gift tins they were called Princess Mary tins and they were given to all soldiers in the British Empire in World War one and I made a little short video about their history and restoring one one that I've I've got in my in my collection if you will and also if you're I suppose interested in old stuff and Restorations I also made one of my favorite videos was a video I made restoring my great grandfather's knife um it's an old fishing knife that he had probably completely handmade and I made a little video just kind of talking about doing it up and restoring it to an extent and uh and looking at history of it and that kind of thing as well too but uh I think that's everything I wanted to talk about yeah I'd be a lot of costume changes in this you might have noticed because like I see I've filmed this over a long time um I had to film that getting into the water with the Jenny can think twice because the first time it didn't work as well dedicated to my craft anyway I am going to go inside make a cup of tea it's freezing cold middle of February um but thank you very much for watching and um Oops I did this whole thing I think touch my mic but anyway bye bye

Channel: Calum

Views: 4,764,516

Keywords: Jerry Can, Blitz Can, Wehrmacht Kanister, Wehrmacht-Einheitskanister, Jerrycan, Jerrican, Gerry Can, Jerry Can Design, Jerry Can History, Gerry Can Design

Id: XwUkbGHFAhs

Length: 30min 14sec (1814 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 28 2022