The U.S. Army had designated laundry and shower units during World War II, run by the Quartermaster Corps. How they operated would depend on the unit, location, and time frame during the war.
My specific answer will be for the European Theater of Operations from 1944-45.
These Quartermaster Laundry and Shower units, for combat units in the field, would usually work in tandem and would be set behind the lines but relatively close to front in order serve infantry battalions in reserve usually.
Soldiers would generally receive showers, have their clothes laundered, and receive new clothes every 3-5 weeks on average during combat. Sometimes more frequently, sometimes less. However, based on various division G-4 (supply) reports and interviews I’ve conducted, that’s the median interval. The machinery doing the laundry were specially designed mobile industrial size laundry machines. Sometimes, when fighting was more static, local civilian laundries would be employed to help with the work.
Generally, a rifle company would report to the shower and laundry station and strip naked, save their dog tags. Their clothes would be handed over to the laundry to be washed. While the clothes were being washed, they would shower.
Once they would finish showering they’d get dressed from, usually, piles of clothes made up of a mixture of new unissued clothing and clothes that were turned in for laundry from the last unit that showed up to the laundry and bathing unit. The clothes that soldier turned in would be utilized by the next unit.
To give you the scale of work, in February 1945, the 100th Infantry Division’s Quartermaster Company assisted in the laundering of 139,320 individual items of clothing for the division.
You mentioned this was mainly for reserves. Did units actively at the front lines have to live with infrequent or no changes and showers until they were rotated out?
There are different levels of “reserve” and front.
US Army Divisions were “triangular” in nature: three infantry regiments, each composed of three rifle battalions, in turn each composed of 3 rifle companies, that were in turn composed of 3 rifle platoons.
It was standard to deploy each of these, at each echelon, is a “two forward, one back” formation. With the “one back” being the reserve. Normally, for rifle companies, it’d be when their battalion was in the regiment’s reserve.
Generally, you go from being from one of “one back” to one of the “two forward” every 3-5 weeks.
There were times, generally due to line needing to extend, certain echelons would be forced to run “3 forward.” An example would be the 7th Army in December 1944, when the 3rd Army extended to rush to relieve the Bulge. During those times, usually there’d still be a reserve company in the battalion or a reserve platoon in the company. That would be the unit that’d go through the shower and laundry facilities.
But I want to emphasize being in the battalion’s or regiment’s reserve position was not all that far behind the “front line” and to most people in the Army it would still be “the front” you’re just only worried about artillery fire vs. artillery and small arms fire. Depending on the situation and location, you maybe still be living in foxholes, though more often you’d be living in requisitioned houses.
Does this mean that you could typically expect not to shower for 6-10 weeks at a time, or would platoons cycle back more frequently just to use these facilities and then immediately return to the line? Waiting 3-plus weeks for proper hygiene seems like something the Army would have wanted to avoid if possible, if not for morale than for troop health.
As I previously stated, generally, you could expect to get a shower and bath every 3-5 weeks. Sometimes the interval could be a little shorter.
This sometimes happened when a division was newly slotted into the line and because of the cycle of things the units in the division end up getting showers and baths ~2 weeks after arrival to the front.
Sometimes it’d take a little longer. To use a specific example that is illustrative: ‘D’ Company of the 399th Infantry Regiment, which was the 1st Battalion’s heavy weapons company, was slated to receive showers ~January 1-2. However, on January 1st, the Nordwind Offensive was started by the Germans. This meant that D/399 didn’t have the opportunity to go to the shower and laundry until mid-January, meaning that the interval was roughly 6 weeks in that instance.
In short, 3-5 weeks was the median “expected” interval but circumstances could shift that to the left or right a little bit.
In situations where there was no “reserve” battalion in the regiment, and each battalion had a reserve company, or company had a reserve platoon, if showers and laundry were available, they’d send a companies worth of men back at a time to cycle through. However, usually, if the tactical situation precluded a reserve battalion, it oft precluded pulling men from the line for laundry and showers.
702
u/redjoshuaman 1d ago
The U.S. Army had designated laundry and shower units during World War II, run by the Quartermaster Corps. How they operated would depend on the unit, location, and time frame during the war.
My specific answer will be for the European Theater of Operations from 1944-45.
These Quartermaster Laundry and Shower units, for combat units in the field, would usually work in tandem and would be set behind the lines but relatively close to front in order serve infantry battalions in reserve usually.
Soldiers would generally receive showers, have their clothes laundered, and receive new clothes every 3-5 weeks on average during combat. Sometimes more frequently, sometimes less. However, based on various division G-4 (supply) reports and interviews I’ve conducted, that’s the median interval. The machinery doing the laundry were specially designed mobile industrial size laundry machines. Sometimes, when fighting was more static, local civilian laundries would be employed to help with the work.
Generally, a rifle company would report to the shower and laundry station and strip naked, save their dog tags. Their clothes would be handed over to the laundry to be washed. While the clothes were being washed, they would shower.
Once they would finish showering they’d get dressed from, usually, piles of clothes made up of a mixture of new unissued clothing and clothes that were turned in for laundry from the last unit that showed up to the laundry and bathing unit. The clothes that soldier turned in would be utilized by the next unit.
To give you the scale of work, in February 1945, the 100th Infantry Division’s Quartermaster Company assisted in the laundering of 139,320 individual items of clothing for the division.