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16 May 2024 — “Mechanical Cows” and an Ice Cream Barge—Supplying Sailors with Ice Cream in the World Wars



One lesson that five and a half years of writing Sea History Today has taught me is that there is a maritime connection to just about everything, if you look hard enough. So it was no surprise to find in the May 1913 edition of the Ice Cream Trade Journal a piece titled “Sailors Like Ice Cream.” That little tidbit of information shouldn’t surprise anyone, of course; who doesn’t like ice cream? But the popularity of the frozen stuff in the US Navy was significant enough to attract the attention of the industry’s trade journal. Apparently sailors really like ice cream. The Journal reported that the Navy had recently purchased 350,000 pounds of evaporated milk to be distributed to naval vessels, and that Paymaster General Thomas Jefferson Cowie had purchased about 2,000,000 pounds of evaporated milk total since the previous March—in less than a year. Certainly, the publication admitted, some of that milk went into the preparation of other dishes, but a whole lot of it went into ice cream for the servicemen. The General Order the following year banning alcohol on US Navy ships only served to shift the focus even more to ice cream as a morale booster.

A ship's cook loads milk into the ice cream machine aboard the hospital ship USS Mercy, ca. 1918. Photo: National Archives

Enthusiasm for the frozen treat in the armed forces didn’t diminish. In the Second World War, an advertisement sponsored by the National Dairy Council reminded American readers (who faced rationing of many food items back home) that “There’s a reason why the US Navy serves ice cream”:

Navy menus don’t just happen!... That is why it is significant that ice cream ranks so high on Navy menus. It is not only a favorite food, but it also supplies valuable vitamins, proteins, and minerals. For that reason, wherever practical, the Navy gets ice cream!... So, if you aren’t always able to get all the ice cream you want—remember, you’re “sharing” this nutritious food with our fighters. By this time, instead of reconstituting milk and then adding the rest of the ingredients, the Navy purchased dry ice cream mix that just needed water—according to the Cookbook of the US Navy, 1.75 gallons of water and nine pounds of the mix would yield 100 servings—to create an unflavored ice cream base, which could be flavored with vanilla tablets, cocoa, coffee, fruit, or whatever the cooks had on hand.

The National Dairy Council reminded the nation that ice cream was a healthful—and popular—food for our US Navy sailors. PD

Larger ships were equipped to produce their own ice cream; survivors of the 1942 sinking of the carrier USS Lexington later shared stories of scrambling to empty out the ice cream freezer before abandoning ship. Smaller vessels, however, weren’t so lucky; one way their crews could get ice cream was by rescuing downed pilots and returning them to their carriers. It was common to give those ships ice cream in appreciation, a sort of good-natured “bounty.” When an assistant to Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal reported that ice cream was “the most neglected of all the important morale factors,” the Navy fitted out the concrete barge USS Quartz to the tune of $1 million (over $17 million today) to support the smaller ships’ need for the treat. Like many of the concrete barges of the period, Quartz served as a supply barge, but she was also equipped with a machine that could churn out ten gallons of ice cream every seven minutes, and her freezer could hold over 2,000 gallons of the stuff. Thus, even smaller vessels in the Pacific could get their fair share.

On this poster from the Office of War Information, ice cream was counted as an essential food item , alongside coffee, bread, butter and eggs. For a battleship crew, 60,000 quarts was the recommended amount to keep on hand. PD

After the war, Quartz took part in the nuclear weapons test Operation Crossroads, and in 1947 (declared free of contamination) she was stricken from the Navy Register and sold to the Foss Launch & Tug Company. Today she is reported to be part of a breakwater near Tacoma, WA. In Sea History Today 101, “The Ups and Downs of Feeding the Crew,” we had a glimpse of food service in the modern Navy, and while ice cream is still popular, the onboard food offerings have come a long way since the “mechanical cow” and vanilla flavoring tablets. Looking at the importance of ice cream in the Navy gives us an interesting perspective into sailors’ lives in the last century.

Extra Credit

But how does it taste? YouTuber Drachinifel tries making Navy ice cream at home

Where Did Sailors Get their Ice Cream?

Sea History Today is written by Shelley Reid, NMHS senior staff writer. Past issues can be read online by clicking here.