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The jerrycan was invented by the Germans during a secret project ordered by Hitler. The Germans called it the Wehrmachtskanister. The Germans had thousands of jerrycans stockpiled by 1939 in anticipation of war. Today similar designs are used for fuel and water containers, some of which are also produced in plastic. The designs usually emulate the original steel design and are still known as jerrycans, although they have also been called "jerryjugs" (or "jerry jugs", just as jerrycan is sometimes spelled as two words as well).
HistoryThe history of the Jerrycan is notable because it was reverse engineered during World War II. Jeri as it was 1st spelt was an acronym for J.E.R.I or Journey Extension Refillable Item. Also commonly called a Journey Can.
American lack of interestIn the summer of 1939, an American engineer named Paul Pleiss had built a vehicle to journey to India with his German colleague. After building the car, they realized they didn't have any storage for emergency water. The engineer had access to the stockpile of Jerrycans at Tempelhof Airport and just managed to take three. They drove across 11 national borders without incident until Field Marshal Goering sent a plane to take the engineer home. The German engineer compounded his treason by giving Pleiss complete specifications for the manufacture of the can. Pleiss continued on to Calcutta, put his car in storage, and flew back to Philadelphia. Pleiss told American military officials about the can, but they ignored him. Without a sample, he realized he couldn't get anywhere. He eventually got the car shipped to New York by a roundabout method, and sent a can to Washington. The War Department decided instead to use the WWI ten-gallon can with two screw closures, which required both a wrench and funnel for pouring. The one American jerrycan was sent to Camp Holabird, Maryland, where it was redesigned. It only retained the handles, size and shape. The weld was replaced with rolled seams, the lining was removed and it now required a wrench and a funnel. The original design proved far superior and these fuel containers were subsequently used in all theatres of war around the world.
British necessityAt the beginning of the Second World War, the British Army were equipped with simple rectangular fuel containers: a 2 Imperial gallon (9 litres) container made of pressed steel and a 4 gallon (18 litres) container made from tin plate. While the 9 litre - 2 gallon containers were relatively strong, they were expensive to produce. The 18 litre - 4 gallon containers, which were mainly manufactured in the third world, were cheap and plentiful but they were not very robust. Consequently they were colloquially known as flimsies.
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