Adventures In Strange Vocabulary

Tactical Dehydration:

A technique employed by fighter pilots during World War II to avoid the necessity of urinating during long missions.

Bombers had some kind of urinal, which was difficult enough with the pressure suits and everything. Fighters had one man sitting in a cramped cockpit for up to eight hours, hardly able to move at all.

There was a contraption with a tube and a funnel-like end to pee into, but it was almost impossible to manage it. They also had diapers that the pilots could use. They didn't like that either. So they resorted to “tactical dehydration.” They would simply stop taking fluids at some point the day before the mission. Voila! No urine to pass! Unfortunately, dehydration can lead to symptoms very much like oxygen deprivation. Dizziness, loss of consciousness, hallucinations. Those presented serious problems of their own.

Many women pilots flew ferry missions that could last the entire eight hours or more. Women flew our fighters to Europe from America. First to Halifax, in Canada; then a leg to Iceland, that's a long one; then over to Ireland, that's the longest. Reports are that most of the women employed the diapers.

The men should have used the diapers. I'm sure that the flight crews back at the base or on the carrier would totally understand. Living in the shadow of death, a little piss smell was the least of their problems.