Though the Coca-Cola men often lived the good life in the midst of war, poverty, and starvation, they could console themselves with the knowledge that their jobs were actually important and meaningful. They saw ample daily evidence that many soldiers regarded the drink as a miracle. Though The Coca-Cola Company had abandoned its medicinal claims long ago, the drink’s placebo effect was revitalized during the war. An Observer commented on “one poor devil with one leg and one arm gone” who had given up on life until he was offered a Coca-Cola. “He told the nurse not to kid him. When he really did get a drink he cried like a baby because it reminded him so much of home.” Another Observer from New Guinea, recounting how wounded soldiers limped to obtain their drinks, could have been describing a scene with a faith healer: “Men on crutches, in wheelchairs, men with bandaged hands, some who cannot see—all lined up by the hundreds to get their Cokes. It makes you feel all tied up inside and long for just one more carbonator. . . .” At such moments, the T.O.s must have felt that they really were dispensing a morale-boosting beverage, rendering “The T.O. Theme Song” somewhat more understandable:
The Technical Observers are winning the war, Parley Vous.
The Technical Observers are winning the war, Parley Vous.
The Technical Observers are winning the war, so what do
The Heinies keep fighting for? Hinkey, Dinkey, Parley Vous.
THE HOME FRONT AND THE HIGH SIGN
Back in the United States, Coke’s ad campaigns exploited the drink’s patriotic presence abroad. To avoid paying more excess profits taxes, the Company poured money into wartime promotions. One showed sailors bellying up to a ship’s bar for the soft drink, with the caption: “Wherever a U.S. battleship may be, the American way of life goes along. . . . So, naturally, Coca-Cola is there, too.” Set in exotic locales such as Hawaii, Great Britain, Russia, Scotland, Newfoundland, and New Guinea, Coke’s ads carried the new catchphrase, “the global high-sign,” and introduced American readers to a few foreign phrases. The Russians, for instance, reacted to Coke by saying “Eto Zdorovo,” translated as “How grand!” The ad men continually touted the soft drink’s status as an American icon: “Yes, around the globe, Coca-Cola stands for the pause that refreshes—it has become a symbol of our way of living.”
These international ads were balanced by scenes from the home front, where Coca-Cola was shown assuaging the thirst of busy Victory gardeners, war bond salesmen, and returning soldiers whose doting wives and children plied them with soft drinks while listening wide-eyed to their war stories. As with Depression-era efforts, the wartime ads avoided unpleasant reality. There were no gory scenes, just good-looking WACs and whole-bodied veterans. According to a 1943 survey, these ads were effective with both men and women: “Feminine readership went up when personalized copy of people on the battle line and home front replaced the story of gleaming planes, tanks, and jeeps.”
Other products also sounded patriotic themes but were roundly condemned for their efforts. One soldier penned a “Memorial to the Great Big Beautiful Self-Sacrificing Advertisers” in which he pilloried “four-color-process hypocrisy” that portrayed “not so much blood and filth, of course, as to offend good taste. . . . Some day somebody will fracture an arm thus publicly waving a flag.” Although Coke’s ads were guilty of just such “hypocrisy,” no GI criticized them. Coca-Cola was such an imbedded part of the American Dream that its advertising couldn’t be offensive. The most popular, widely quoted ad during the war, “The Kid in Upper 4,” was produced by a railroad company and featured a soldier lying in his berth “wide awake . . . staring into the blackness,” thinking about “the taste of hamburgers and pop, [and] a dog named Shucks, or Spot.”
Consequently, the Company feverishly boosted its patriotic image during World War II. For a dime, the Company sold thousands of copies of a “Know Your War Planes” booklet—an ingenious appeal to war-happy kids. The “Our America” pamphlet series, designed for junior high students, told the story of the U.S. steel, lumber, coal, or agricultural industries with minimal advertising. Coca-Cola distributed cribbage boards, playing cards, Chinese checkers, dominoes, dartboards, Bingo, table tennis sets, and comic postcards illustrated with military themes. As sponsor of the popular radio series Victory Parade of Spotlight Bands, Coca-Cola hired over a hundred name bands to play concerts and drink Cokes at bases around the country. Irish tenor Morton Downey, destined to play a postwar role in the Company’s affairs, sang on his own Coca-Cola-sponsored radio show.*
Despite Oehlert’s attempts to persuade the War Production Board that Coca-Cola was essential for civilian morale, too, the general public’s supply was severely rationed. A Kansas editor wrote that the Coke shortage really brought home the seriousness of the war, while Texas Coca-Cola addicts were particularly upset by rationing, according to one journalist, who feared protestors “swinging a six-shooter in one hand and a Coke bottle filled with TNT in the other.” One customer, rushing to pull a warm bottle of Coke out of a cooler just after it was stocked, explained it all: “Those people have spent twenty years making a drinker out of me and [they] can’t shut me off this easy.”
ACKLIN’S AGONIZING WAR
The tall, frail, gentle man responsible for the daily management of the Company during World War II, Arthur Acklin, assumed the Coca-Cola presidency just before the war began, apparently because Robert Woodruff no longer wanted to be in the spotlight or to deal with mundane matters. Acklin hated pressure; he had already broken down once in 1934, and he begged Woodruff not to make him president in 1939 but to no avail. As he put it himself, Acklin possessed a “temperament that takes seriously any problem with which I am confronted.” He found it difficult to cope with day-to-day decisions—and there were enough during the war to rattle any executive. He worried over buying Peruvian sugar for the domestic business at inflated prices. He had to negotiate with Monsanto Chemical Company, encouraging them to build special plants to manufacture caffeine in Brazil and Mexico. He contracted for recycled bottle caps because of metal shortages. Monthly, Coke consumed twenty-five thousand gallons of vanilla extract; annually, the drink needed a million pounds of Merchandise No. 5, the coca leaf and kola nut extract. Shortages loomed for both ingredients.
The pressure started to tell on Acklin, who grew gaunter by the day. He asked Woodruff to form a “working policy committee” to help him, but the Boss refused. Coca-Cola’s mismanaged baseball team, the Atlanta Crackers, lost money. The government froze wages and prices. The Thomas Company wanted everything for nothing. Over half of the Company personnel were drafted. Three weeks after the Germans surrendered, Acklin cracked. “Naturally you cannot be conscious of the multitude of problems with which I have been confronted,” Acklin wrote plaintively. “The strain has taken a rather heavy toll.” Woodruff had to assume the presidency again as an interim measure. Acklin managed to steer domestic Coca-Cola through the war in good shape, but he himself was a casualty.
WALTER MACK MAKES HIS MOVES
In the meantime, Pepsi president Walter Mack thrived on the same pressure that undid Acklin. Complaining that Coke had “an inordinate amount of political influence,” Mack attacked Ed Forio’s position on the Sugar Rationing Board, telling the head of the War Production Board that Forio was a “phony” and threatening to cause a public stink unless he was replaced within a week. Three days later, the Coca-Cola man resigned.*
Regardless of who was in charge of sugar rationing, however, Pepsi was in trouble. Desperate for sweetener, Mack pursued every conceivable avenue. Initially, he bought a Cuban plantation but was unable to export anything until after the war because of Cuban regulations. Mack then went to Mexico and cemented a deal with the government to purchase forty thousand tons of sugar a year at slightly above the top asking price. That didn’t really help, though, since Mexican law prohibited the export of sugar and U.S. law forbade its importation. Undaunted, Mack incorporated the Mexican-American Flavors Company in Monterrey, where he converted the sugar into a syru
p he called “El Masquo” and legally transported it over the border to his Pepsi bottlers. Coca-Cola dubbed Mack’s syrup “El Sneako” and eventually pressured the government into closing the loophole in 1944. The unstoppable Mack then turned to a New Jersey condiment maker and bought a million and a half gallons of sugarcane juice, which he clarified into twelve million pounds of sweetener before the government again foiled his strategy.
Although his aggressive style didn’t help when he protested Coca-Cola’s virtual monopoly on bases, Mack was determined to attract military business anyway, opening three huge Pepsi-Cola Servicemen’s Centers in Washington, San Francisco, and New York, where soldiers could find free Pepsi, nickel hamburgers, and a shave, shower, and free pants pressing. And in 1942 Pepsi invaded military installations to offer another free service. GIs could record greetings and send them anywhere they chose. For tongue-tied soldiers, Mack even provided sixteen boiler-plate messages addressed to Mom, Dad, or the girl back home. “Let me tell you,” thousands of these ghostwritten messages sincerely commenced, “Uncle Sam is doing a good job keeping me in the pink of condition for you, honey, so don’t be worrying about me.” By the end of the war three million personalized Pepsi recordings had been delivered to loved ones. To further cheer the lowly private, Mack dispatched professional wrestling troops to perform in Army camps.
Nor did Mack neglect the civilian population. Taking advantage of Coca-Cola’s scarcity at the soda fountain, Mack pushed into this traditional Coke stronghold with syrup for a ten-ounce fountain drink selling for the same nickel as Coke’s six-ounce glass. Pepsi sponsored national softball tournaments, huge square dances, and clubhouses for teenagers. While Pepsi couldn’t match Coke’s presence in Hollywood, it did garner a plug on Broadway. In 1943’s Something for the Boys, Ethel Merman, playing a woman whose tooth fillings brought in radio broadcasts, tuned in her incisors to the famous jingle. As the orchestra played the opening bars, Merman loudly announced: “Pepsi-Cola!”
Through such shenanigans, Walter Mack made inroads on Coca-Cola’s American empire during World War II, securing a place in the postwar market. Nonetheless, despite his showman’s flair, Mack could do nothing about Coca-Cola’s monopoly overseas, where sipping a Coke in his foxhole was a minor miracle to the war-weary GI.
WARTIME TESTIMONIALS
The triumph of Coca-Cola during the war was in many ways due to its relative scarcity, which enhanced its value and desirability. One young soldier, writing from New Guinea to his parents, described his home-brewed Coke. “The syrup is old and the [carbonated] gas low, but it’s still our greatest luxury. The syrup is dipped with a tin spoon into an aluminum canteen cup and stirred with a stick and we still love it.” He concluded that American ingenuity could accomplish wonders. “This war should be a cinch now.” His attitude was echoed by many other letters from homesick young Americans for whom Coca-Cola assumed an astonishing significance:
It’s the little things, not the big, that the individual soldier fights for or wants so badly when away. It’s the girl friend back home in a drug store over a Coke, or the juke box and the summer weather.
I always thought it was a wonderful drink, but on an island where few white men have set foot, it is a Godsend. I can truthfully say that I haven’t seen smiles spread over a bunch of boys’ faces as they did when they saw Coca-Cola in this God-forsaken place.
. . . one real bottle of Coca-Cola, the first one I have seen here. It was pulled out from under the shirt of a pilot. . . . He caressed it, his eyes rolled over it, he smacked his lips at the prospect of tasting it. I offered him one dollar for half of it, then two, three, and five dollars.
You will probably think your son has had his head exposed to the sun too long. But the other day, three of us guys walked ten miles to buy a case of Coca-Cola, then carried it back. You will never know how good it tasted.
The crowning touch to your Christmas packages was the bottled Coca-Cola. How did you ever think of sending them? To have it here and turn up the bottle and see “Ronceverte, W. Va.,” on the bottom was an added thrill.
This week, Coca-Cola came to Italy. Seemingly everyone had heard the rumor, but no one put much faith in it. How could it be true? Coca-Cola is some vaguely familiar nectar, reminiscent of some far-off paradise land. Italy is a land of C-rations and Spam and dehydrated food.
To have this drink is just like having home brought nearer to you; it’s one of the little things of life that really counts. I can remember being at Ponce de Leon Park, watching the [Atlanta] Crackers play baseball as I filled up on Coca-Cola and peanuts. It’s things such as this that all of us are fighting for.
One soldier summarized the sentiments: “If anyone were to ask us what we are fighting for, we think half of us would answer, the right to buy Coca-Cola again.” Letters such as these poured into Company offices, though they were publicized only to Company employees. Consequently, the Company was delighted when Colonel Robert L. Scott, in his best-seller God Is My Co-Pilot, explained that his motivation to “shoot down my first Jap” stemmed from thoughts of “America, Democracy, Coca-Colas.” Before World War II, Coca-Cola men had been taught to have faith in their drink, to hustle and sell every day, to proclaim the virtues of their product everywhere they went. Certainly, here was the proof that Coca-Cola was America, at least by 1945. George Brennan, a corporal, wrote back to his old boss at Coca-Cola that his wartime experience had given him a new appreciation for the drink: “In civilian life, when there is an abundance of Coca-Cola, you feel convinced that it is good and more or less let it go at that. But you have to experience the scarcity of Coca-Cola or suffer its absence to acquire a full appreciation of what it means to us as Americans.”
OPENING CEREMONIES, CARBONATED RAFFLES, SACRAMENTAL WINE
Given the depth of the feelings expressed in those letters home, it is understandable that the downing of a Coke overseas often became a matter of considerable ceremony. One soldier wrote: “I have seen four high-ranking officers opening a bottle of Coca-Cola as if it were a magnum of Cordon Rouge 1929.” Another soldier, with tongue somewhat in cheek, wrote:
The pop, as you open it; with some pomp and a good deal of ceremony you bring open bottle to within 3 inches of your nose. No mistaking now, it is; it is Coke. The urge now is to quaff the whole thing in one gulp, but if you have the least bit of the esthetic in you, you don’t. One more sniff, and, deftly holding the bottle between thumb and two middle fingers, small finger slightly raised, you bring bottle to eager lips and straining, impatient tongue. Then—this takes a lot of will-power and self-control—you don’t take a full swig, but just a wee bit of a sip, and smartly roll the liquid on your tongue. A fraction of a fraction of a moment you hesitate and pause. By golly! Coke, all right! Finally, what the hell, down goes the entire contents of the bottle in one gulp.
Given the popularity and symbolic weight Coca-Cola achieved during the war (and the lack of GI spending outlets), it was predictable that Coca-Cola would bring a considerable amount of money on the black market and the informal commerce common to soldiers. One bottle was reported to sell for anything from $5 to $40. In an auction in Iran, a bottle went for $1,000. The most famous (and expensive) bottle was sold on Italian auction for $4,000.
Coca-Cola developed a psychological significance akin to an icon or rare religious relic; many bottles remained unopened after the war, kept hidden away as sacred mementos. It seemed fitting that Mary Churchill, Winston’s daughter, should christen a new destroyer with a bottle of Coke. During the war years, explicit treatment of Coke-as-religion cropped up. Since the notion of a soft drink being worshiped was disconcerting, these references were often humorous. Corporal Frank Hardie, for instance, wrote a parody of Jesus’ parable of the foolish and wise virgins: “But the wise converted their quarters into nickels when he who filleth the Coca-Cola machine passed through. And lo, there came a time when the red light disappeared from the face of the machine, and the machine was filled. . . .”
T.O.
Maurice Duttera recalled dining at the officers’ club in Cannes with two Catholic priests, who frequently kidded him about the soldiers’ attitude to Coca-Cola, urging him to requisition a plane, fly to Rome, and obtain the Pope’s blessing on Coke as holy water. Those clerics were joking, but during the Battle of the Bulge, Ken Hogan, an Observer, really did supply a priest with Coca-Cola in lieu of sacramental wine.
INSULATORS, SHANDIES, AND URINALS
The near-religious awe with which many soldiers regarded Coca-Cola did not prevent others from putting the ubiquitous bottle to other uses. Coke bottles were drafted as emergency electrical insulators in the Pacific, dropped on Japanese airfields in “Coke runs” to puncture tires, wielded by sailors in life rafts to kill sea turtles for food. The British scandalized GIs by mixing Cokes with beer and calling the result “shandies,” while another groggy soldier brushed his teeth with the soft drink every morning. Coca-Cola cases were much in demand as portable mailboxes and stools. “Coca-Cola” was the battle password while crossing the Rhine.
Other alternative utilizations were more risqué. Like the boys back home, many soldiers advised their girlfriends to douche with the fizzy drink. Perhaps the most inventive recycling of bottles, though, combining nostalgia with irreverence, concerned a Navy officers’ club men’s room in the New Hebrides. Hundreds of Coke bottles embossed with local franchises’ locations were embedded, bottom out, in the concrete urinal wall, with varicolored lights behind them providing an eerie glow to a continual wash of water. “It was something to see,” one nostalgic veteran recalled. “People came from long distances ‘just to piss on the old home town.’”
For God, Country, and Coca-Cola Page 32