Jerry Can with Octane Tag

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Last weekend I was visiting a flea market in Coblenz / Germany.

A seller sold some US things he get out a house in Rhens. In this town south of Coblenz,

parts of the 87th Division crossed the Rhine river.

One thing I bought was this Jerry Can. I have seen reproduction Octane Tags in the past (but they look different),

but tihs one was my first original I saw.

Why and for what reason were they used, Could not be used much, because I found many Gas Cans in the past, but never with octane tag.

 

Gruß christian

 

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[M422A1]

I would think it would be so they could tell the difference between low octane for jeeps, trucks & tanks and high octane for planes. They would only need it if they had both types of gas stored near each other, I guess.

[hbtcoveralls]

I have the original Army Motors issue from when the octane tags were first introduced.

 

The Army had noticed that there was an increase in mis-fueling incidents

 

The Jerry can had just been adopted and cans and drums stored in the open quickly lost their paper labels and markings meaning nobody could directly identify what was in there

 

Since the Army used the same cans and drums for all kinds of POL they came up with the tags as a way of marking the contents

 

They are supposed to be different colors for different POL (gas, Diesel oil, 100 octane av gas etc)

 

the tags are also different shapes with emobssed numbers that can be felt under blackout conditions

 

Super nice Jerry can by the way, There's a page on the G503 website devoted to the humble jerry can

 

Tom Bowers

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Hi,

 

thank you for this information!