Surprisingly, given it's ubiquity, very little has been written on the subject of the jerrycan over the years-only a small number of articles published in magazines about history or vehicles refer to it in any detail.
This book relates the story of this ingenious container, bringing together in one collection, documents, many colour photographs (particularly valuable to collectors), as well as different points of view on this topic from a wide variety of sources.
Industrial production of the"Kanister" started in 1937 in Germany, then in 1941 the USA created its own gas can, inspired by the German model. British production started only in 1942. Italy also manufactured the "taniche" for its army, but due to the absence of dates for the Italian version, it is hard to say exactly when production was launched. Finally, towards the end of the conflict, in 1944, France started to manufacture different models, with varying degrees of success.
Seventy years after it was first used by the German army, the original design of the jerrycan remains in production today for civilian use, and is still employed by a few armies around the world. Lighter models in PVC have now replaced the original steel model in the US army. But that is another story.
Philippe Leger was born in 1955. A hospital nurse, he is a World War II fanatic and avid collector.
