THE GREAT DOUGHNUT FEAST

Emerson Kuder, Group Gunnery (N.C.O.)
(Originally published in Courage, Honor, Victory)

During the latter half of 1943 I recall several air and ground crew members of the 412th Squadron were enjoying the regular card game in our Nissen hut, shooting the bull about anything and everything, when somebody happened to mention, very wistfully, how much he missed the delicious taste of some real, homemade doughnuts. 

It so happened that one of my civilian-life occupations before the war was as assistant to a baker in a large restaurant, and I'd help make many large batches of fancy doughnuts. The next day I went to the aircrew mess and persuaded the head cook to lend me a recipe for doughnuts, which I subsequently converted down to a four-dozen batch. 

That evening I told everyone in the barracks if they could "acquire" the necessary ingredients and cooking utensils required, I would make the doughnuts for them the next night. Then followed a lot of furtive scurrying to and fro between the two buildings with each man somehow making a raid on the aircrew mess. All the required staples and supplies that I needed appeared, including one of the mess tables. 

The following afternoon I began mixing the dough in the pans, then rolled out the dough on the table. Things were going great. We weren't able to get a proper doughnut cutter, but a biscuit cutter and the brass cartridge case from an empty 50-caliber shell (which had been boiled until clean) made the ideal substitute doughnut-cutter. The pot-bellied stove in our barracks was soon glowing red, a large pan filled with lard was put on top of the stove, and we were in business. 

I made the four dozen doughnuts and handed them out. I was getting ready to tidy up when it seemed every enlisted man and officer in the 412th squadron suddenly appeared, all wanting one of our doughnuts. We only had the exact ingredients for the one batch, and I tried to explain I couldn't make any more. As if by magic everything I needed to make more doughnuts appeared and more men literally elbowed their way in with yet more supplies. I was making doughnuts until lights out. 

The next day I received a reprimand from Captain Stone, squadron adjutant, for cooking in the barracks, the untidy mess and shambles in the barracks, and a severe reprimand for not inviting him to share in the feast. 

But the reprimands, or "chewing-out," were well worth it just to see the expressions of delight and obvious pleasure on all those men's faces as they enjoyed the great doughnut feast.