During theBattle of Chosin Reservoirin 1950,mortarsections under
theUnited States Marine Corpsstarted to run out of mortar rounds. The
radio men of these sections started requesting more rounds. There were too
many nearby enemy anti-air emplacements however, and the risk that they
might lose any airlifted supplies was too great, so they had to wait. After
two days of waiting, all the mortar sections ran out of rounds. At this
point they accidentally ordered hundreds of crates of Tootsie Roll candies
instead of mortar rounds. This was because some elements of the United
States military had used "tootsie rolls" as code for mortar rounds