This emergency field cooker, or “Hot Box” was used by Captain Thomas E. Bennett, 16th Infantry Regiment, during World War II. The emergency field cooker is a cardboard box around a small block of paraffin (flammable wax) that allows soldiers to heat their rations. This particular box was penetrated by a small piece of shrapnel which is still lodged inside. Around midnight on July 31, 1944 the 1st Infantry Division’s command post near Saint-Denis-le-Gast, France was bombed by Luftwaffe Ju 88’s. The German aircraft dropped “grass cutter” bombs that sent shrapnel 360 degrees through the air. One fragment embedded itself in Bennett’s Hot Box. Bennett recalled that the shrapnel also shattered an unopened bottle of British Gin which he was saving, stating “The Germans were sometimes thoughtless like that.”