About the Jerry can, jerrycan, jerrican, fuelcan or gas can

A jerrycan or jerrican or jerry can is a robust fuel container made from pressed steel.

The jerrycan was invented by the Germans during a secret project. 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 spelt as two words as well).

The history of the Jerrycan is notable due to the fact that it was reverse engineered during World War II.

American lack of interest

In 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 took 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. Pliess continued on to Calcutta, put his car in storage, and flew back to Philadephia.

Pleiss told American military officials about the can, but they ignored him. Without a sample, he realized he could get nowhere. 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 requried both a wrench and funnel for pouring.

The one American jerrycan was sent to Camp Holabird, MD, 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 necessity

At the beginning of the Second World War, the British Army were equipped with simple rectangular fuel containers: a 2 Imperial gallon (9 litre) container made of pressed steel and a 4 gallon (18 litre) container made from tin plate. While the 2 gallon containers were relatively strong, they were expensive to produce. The 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.

While adequate for transportation by road in Europe, the flimsies proved to be extremely unsatisfactory during the North African Campaign and severely hampered the operation of the British 8th Army. The transportation of fuel over rough terrain often resulted in much of the fuel being lost as the containers were easily punctured. The resultant leakages also made the transportation vehicles liable to fuel fires.

When the British Army first saw the German fuel cans during the invasion of Norway in 1940, the British immediately saw the advantages of the superior design. The containers had three handles on them to allow for easy handling by one or two people, or to be moved bucket brigade-style; the sides of the can were marked with cross-like indentations that allowed the contents of the can to expand; when filled, the cans retained an air pocket so that they would float on water; and rather than a screw cap, the containers used a cam lever release mechanism with a short spout secured with a snap closure and an air-pipe to the air pocket which enabled smooth pouring. The interior was also lined with an impervious plastic, first developed for steel beer barrels that would allow the can to be used for either water or gasoline. The can was welded, and had a gasket for a leak-proof mouth. The British used cans captured from the "gerrys" (Germans) — hence "gerrycans" or "jerrycans" — in preference to their own containers as much as possible. Later in 1940 Pleiss was in London, and British officers asked him about the design and manufacture of the jerrycan. Pleiss ordered the second of his three jerrycans flown to London.

The 5 gallon Jerry Can was often used as an auxiliary fuel supply for generators or anything with a gasoline engine. In additon, various models of military stoves, immersion heaters for hot water, and tent heaters used the Jerry Can for fuel. Rather than transferring fuel from the common Jerry Can, special lids were developed that screwed right onto the Jerry Can and provided a fuel line connection. The photo (left) is an adaptor for a field kitchen. Below is a Jerry Can being used to supply fuel to a 15kw generator.

The fuel cap with the tent stove adapter had a rubber hose attached to supply the stove. The hose had a metal holder that forced the hose into a pigtail to keep the flame from travelling up the hose into the fuel.

The flat, rectangular fuel can has become so well known that an Army jeep looks bare without one on its rear panel next to the spare tire. Officially called "Can, Gasoline, Military; Steel; 5-Gallon" (at least in the 1970s), the Jerry Can has some unique design features that have made it so successful in field use. It holds 5 gallons (or 20 liters), not too heavy for one man to carry or strap to a packboard. It has three handles so it is easy to move by hand, one man to the next, in "bucket brigade" fashion or for two men to carry one between them. It is rectangular so can be stacked in large, orderly piles or into trucks, with little wasted space. It has an X-shaped indentation on each side for additional strength. The opening was placed on a slant to the top, and there is a dome behind the handles, so it was not possible to completely fill the can, always allowing for further expansion and maintaining enough air inside so it would float in water. There is an internal air tube to a small hole at the opening so air can replace fuel as it is emptied.

The original closure (British style) had a small lever-action lid over an opening that could be poured from. The American design substituted a wide mouth opening with 4-lug screw lid, closely copied from a 55-gallon drum bung plug. The lugs were placed so a tool could be used for leverage to turn a stuck lid. The American can could be filled or emptied faster, and was easier to clean out, but tended to leak and spill more than the lever-cap British/German approach.

As is often the case, the US Marine Corps was the exception. They procured gas and water cans that had the general size and shape of the Jerry Cans used by the other US services, but utilized a filler cap that was similar to the German/British design: smaller diameter with a lever-action closure. The photo to the left (World Wide Photo) shows Marines and their Jerry Cans arriving at Tarawa Island, November 1943. The filler cap can be clearly seen and distinguished from the flat, 4-lug, screw top of the Army cans.

During World War II and afterward, millions of these containers were produced in the US alone. The Olive-Drab page on Jerry Can Markings has more about who made them and how the cans were marked. The nomenclature for the can became "CAN, GAS, MILITARY, 5 GAL" produced under specification MIL-C-1283.

Not Just Gasoline

Even though it is often called a "gas can", the container is commonly used for everything from diesel fuel to kerosene to jet fuel and so forth. In the military, cans are often stenciled in white, black or yellow over the olive drab base finish with "MOGAS", "AVGAS", "DIESEL" or whatever indicates the contents. The gas can is never interchanged with water (since someone might get poisoned) -- a version of the Jerry Can specially designed for water is used for that.

12.30.09

This is the date that CARB Compliant Jerrycans became the only jerrycan option. All Wedco jerrycans now must be CARB compliant to be sold in the US. To read more about why Wedo Jerrycans must no be CARB compliant, you can read more here at the CA Air Resource Board. Also Briggs&Stratton Jerrycans model manufactured by Wedco Permeation Test Results.