"Mystery Can" being made in factory, Egypt 1944

[Quest Master]

I scanned this Signal Corps Photo, SC187433, at the National Archives, College Park, Maryland, last year.
“Spout being welded to Jerry can at Choubra (Egypt).” February 19th 1944, photo by Pvt. Robert T. Cummins, Signal Corps.

Is this the United States Marine Corps Expeditionary 5-Gallon Container, AKA "Mystery Can"? Note, that the can has no markings.

[gerrykan]

The US sent several jerrycan manufacturing plants overseas, and at least one to the Middle East.
CONCO sent one of their engineers to Egypt, perhaps to oversee the installation of such equipment.

I do not remember if the Germans or British did anything similar.

Thanks for sharing the image.

[Robin]

Since CONCO was the manufacturer of the so called "mystery can" perhaps they supplied the tooling to the factory in Egypt along with their engineer?

[sturgis]

Excellent find. I hope there ae more pics in the series. We have been waiting some time for such evidence to arise. I personally think that the Conco rep was sent to oversee the setup of the plant using the existing tooling from the earlier manufacture of the 'USMC expeditionary can'. The plant was to be for the British, therefore they used the standard oval cam-lock instead of the round one. Once the plant was set up and producing, it was handed over to the British to continue.

[Quest Master]

This was the only photo that was submitted for archiving with the Signal Corps at the National Archives. When I do an archives "pull" I go through the entire box and scan anything that looks interesting. This was the only liquid container photo in that box - and a significant find, so I scanned and am sharing it. I post most of these WWII photos on my facebook fan page: Quest Masters Museum. Feel free to follow.