The Jerrycan is named for the ‘Jerries’, which was British slang for ‘Germans’ during WW2. Captured Jerrycans were coveted by British soldiers, as they were superior to the leaky and unreliable British models. Jerrycans were so superior to previous designs that the British North Africa campaign was hindered by their inferior version, known as “flimsies”. The Allied forces reverse engineered the jerrycan to replace their ‘flimsies’.