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Comment by _ak | Hacker News Reader

The Germans used metamphetamine during World War 2. They gave it nicknames Panzerschokolade ("tank chocolate"), Stuka-Tabletten ("Stuka tablets"), Herman-Göring-Pillen, or Flieger-Marzipan ("pilot's marzipan"). It was freely available under the brand name "Pervitin" until 1941. From then on, you needed a prescription in order to purchase it.

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Not just Germany, or Japan, but US Bomber pilots used Amphetamines in WW2[0], and the infantry in Vietnam[1].

[0]https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/10.1162/JINH_a_00212 (I could only find this abstract about US use.)

[1]https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/04/the-drugs...

Not just in WW2 and Vietnam, but much more recently than that. Search "go pills" in this unfortunately Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarnak_Farm_incident

NBC from 2003:

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3071789/ns/us_news-only/t/go-pills...

The Japanese also had similar drugs in free circulation during ww2 if I remember correctly.

Not only that, the Japanese actually invented (synthesized) Meth in 1919. source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methamphetamine

It's still one of the most popular (if not the most popular) illegal drugs in Japan. source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_methamphetamin...

From what I understood it was used by kamikaze pilots (mainly the infamous Mitsubishi A6M Zero).

Frank Whittle used Benzedrine while working on the turbojet engine, so there's that.

Did you read Blitzed by Norman Ohler?

No, why?

It's a pretty good read, mostly about the prevalence of Pervitin usage. I found it extremely worthwhile but drug discourse is my cup of tea- I tend to get a bit geeky about it.

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