Soldier served in secret WW II unit

During World War II, Charles Brittenham taste-tested food for poison and contaminants before it was shipped to the soldiers fighting overseas.

The 82-year-old Bonners Ferry man was part of a secret unit of 3,500 men in a technical command who volunteered to sample Meals Ready to Eat (MRE’s), said his wife Pat.

Brittenham, served at Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane.

 “The men had a separate tent set up and the volunteers would eat there, away from all the other soldiers,” Pat Brittenham said. “They would eat and my husband saw many die of poisoning and many get cut with glass and bleed internally.”

Brittenham was unavailable for comment because he is ill. His wife recounted the information he told her for this story.

 MRE’s were produced and packaged in the states.

 The enemy would infiltrate these processing plants as employees. They would poison and sabotage the food intended for the fighting soldiers, Brittenham said.

She said the Army/Air Force tried to keep the unit secret. It was not publicly known that there were men sacrificing their lives in this way.

“A sort of Russian roulette,” said Pat Brittenham. “Then, to top it off they were never recognized as the heroes they are.”

“I am so proud of my husband and he is one of the very few who survived,” she said.

Brittenham said her husband’s military records were destroyed in a fire. She said that most of the surviving men have reported their records destroyed under similar circumstances.

Charles Brittenham was in a motorcycle accident and received injures that prevented him to go into combat in Germany.

He followed the tradition of his father Elmer Brittenham, who fought in World War I.

The elder Brittenham was a gunman who fired Big Bertha, a one-of-a-kind fire cannon that in its time, was state of the art.

The cannon, took several men to operate it, could hit targets as far as 16 miles away.

The men who volunteered for the special unit wanted to do their part in fighting in World War II, but due to specific reasons could not go overseas, said Brittenham.

“They volunteered to test the food to protect their fellow soldiers.”

There were not many men who survived this duty, Brittenham said.

“I think these men deserve the recognition and it should be noted somewhere they made the ultimate sacrifice for their fellow soldiers, so they could continue fighting for our freedom,” she said.