How Ice Cream Helped America at War

August 9, 2017 10:13 AM

For decades, the military made sure soldiers had access to the treat—including spending $1 million on a floating ice-cream factory.

posted by Etrigan (11 comments total)

My father served during WW II aboard a converted Chiwawa-class oiler called the Enoree. Mostly his ship supplied others in the Pacific at the very tail-end of the war. He was also present at the Marshall Islands nuclear tests.

He swore that it took artful swaps with other ships to obtain everything necessary to make ice cream--and when they did it was in small quantities using powdered milk, sugar and no real flavoring per se. He's gone now so I can't pursue this but my sister and I heard about the endless ice-cream-less days before his ship traded cigarettes for a small freezer, and the barely acceptable ice cream it produced.

In fact the two big things he claimed were missed most during his year on the Enoree were a crunchy green salad and proper ice cream, preferably from Isaly's. (Yep, he was from Pittsburgh.)
posted by kinnakeet at 10:27 AM on August 9, 2017 [3 favorites]

My dad was in the Navy in the South Pacific during WWII, and he did not talk about anything having to do with the war except for the fact that he got to make the ice cream. But I had no idea that the ice cream phenomenon was a recognized thing.
posted by ernielundquist at 11:32 AM on August 9, 2017 [4 favorites]

pogey bait
posted by wenestvedt at 11:39 AM on August 9, 2017

Good article. I am reminded of how the tobacco companies aggressively marketed through free distribution of cigarettes to soldiers beginning in WWI, and I am sure the ice cream makers were aware of that as well.
posted by briank at 11:49 AM on August 9, 2017

Anecdotal but supported by anecdotes found elsewhere- there is a considerable etiquette that's evolved around the gedunk bar.
According to my Uncle, who served on the USS Saratoga (CV-60), the line for the ice cream was the one place on the ship where rank was not to be pulled, or even mentioned. Pilots, green gang, engine crew.... it was the one place where he could meet all the different people on the crew (usually it was heavily segregated).
There are similar anecdotes about Spruance, etc., forbidding officers for pulling rank in the gedunk line.
And so the ice cream bar now plays an important social role aboard carriers and other ships with a large complement. It's like what grog used to be for the Royal Navy, but for the USN.
posted by LeRoienJaune at 11:55 AM on August 9, 2017 [6 favorites]

The submarine I was on had a soft-serve machine that was always full.

We also loaded large quantities of "hard pack" (in the small cardboard drums you see in an ice cream shop) for special occasions.
posted by ArgentCorvid at 11:55 AM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]

"In 1942, as Japanese torpedoes slowly sank the U.S.S. Lexington, then the second-largest aircraft carrier in the Navy’s arsenal, the crew abandoned ship—but not before breaking into the freezer and eating all the ice cream"

Americans, you be crazy.
posted by GuyZero at 1:43 PM on August 9, 2017 [3 favorites]

All thanks to the work of General Baskin and General Robbins.
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:04 PM on August 9, 2017 [3 favorites]

My grandpa worked for the YMCA his whole life, and was involved, in the postwar USAFE era, with the US armed services Y connected to the airbase at Lakenheath. For this reason a lot of his friends, and the people around my dad when he was growing up, were USAF personnel stationed there. In addition to remarking on the astonishing range of confectionery available to the Americans in a country that was only just leaving sugar rationing behind, my dad remembers a member of aircrew who would take advantage of the freezing conditions in the unpressurised planes at altitude, and carefully hand whisk and churn a bowl of egg-custard into ice-cream, to be consumed on landing. That, I think, represents a laudable degree of dedication to the ice-cream cause.
posted by howfar at 2:24 PM on August 9, 2017 [12 favorites]

Great piece, worth it just for the origin of Rocky Road!
posted by languagehat at 2:49 PM on August 9, 2017

My grandfather was a firefighter on the USS Shubrick, a Gleaves-class destroyer that got hit by a kamikaze aircraft that caused the ship's depth charges to blow up while still onboard. Another bomb on board the aircraft that crashed into the ship exploded after impact, blowing a 30 foot hole in the side. Contrary to the USS Saratoga experiences related above, my grandfather complained that only officers got ice cream on his boat. (This is actually backed up by a war diary from the invasion of Sicily.) He seemed more bitter about that than floating in the ocean for a few hours waiting to get picked up by rescue.
posted by xyzzy at 8:51 PM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]