I’ve been watching Ken Burn’s The War. In the episode “FUBAR”, the film mentions Thanksgiving Day in Europe, 1944. After the disaster of Market Garden and other setbacks made it clear that the war was not going to end by Christmas, Eisenhower ordered that every GI in Europe get a turkey dinner for Thanksgiving to prop up sagging morale. The Germans used the opportunity to shell the American field kitchens, killing many GIs as they ate their turkey. One officer, who had protested to his superiors about that very possibility, “could never again look upon a turkey dinner without weeping.”
Burns also mentions Thanksgiving in his other epic, The Civil War. In 1863, Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November a national day of Thanksgiving. Union troops were served turkey dinners. The narrator notes that the confederates, who received no special meals that day, “held their fire all day, out of respect for the Union holiday.”
An interesting comparison.