U Boat food

[Rick]

Interesting videos of history and food.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Wants some music with that meal?

 Want some music with that meal?

[Sardaukar]

Probably bit weird question, but what did USN submariners eat when submerged in WW II ?

I'd think that running electric motors would prevent using stoves and hot plates?

Edited May 10, 2024 by Sardaukar

[R011]

This is an article from a naval museum in San Francisco:

https://maritime.org/tour/cm.php?pano=nr

Apparently, they ate fairly well all things considered.

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

15 hours ago, Sardaukar said:

Probably bit weird question, but what did USN submariners eat when submerged in WW II ?

I'd think that running electric motors would prevent using stoves and hot plates?

Ate Ice cream. No, really.

[Sardaukar]

12 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Ate Ice cream. No, really.

Burgers and ice cream would need electricity.

Thus curious. 

Sandwiches is my bet. 

[Sardaukar]

On 5/11/2024 at 1:08 AM, R011 said:

This is an article from a naval museum in San Francisco:

https://maritime.org/tour/cm.php?pano=nr

Apparently, they ate fairly well all things considered.

 

They ate great compared. 

[Stuart Galbraith]

8 hours ago, Sardaukar said:

Burgers and ice cream would need electricity.

Thus curious. 

Sandwiches is my bet. 

Well, they really did have these fitted to US submarines, even up to the present day I believe. It was a mod for Silent Hunter IV If I recall correctly.

The US Navy was nuts about the stuff, even buying an ice cream barge.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_cream_barge

The Royal Navy had the best idea of all, buying a floating brewery.

https://taskandpurpose.com/history/royal-navy-ship-floating-brewery-world-war-2/

[Sardaukar]

Yea, they had all the stuff working when on surface and running on diesels, so electricity was no problem.

But any extended time submerged, electricity would have been a problem, running on batteries. And for obvious reasons gas stoves etc. were never installed. 

[Tim Sielbeck]

From what I remember seeing from movies when they were submerged they served a lot of sandwiches.

Edited May 18, 2024 by Tim Sielbeck

[bojan]

IIRC some US subs had catalytic heaters for emergencies, through I doubt those were used for cooking.

[rmgill]

Apparently, US submarines had Air Conditioning as well. 

When submerged, your contents of the freezer would stay cold for some time just based on thermal mass. When you rigged for silent running, noise makers like Freezer compressors would be turned off. 

You can use resistive heaters easy enough for cooking and baking. Photos of the USS Pampito show's a large industrial type Mixer for mixing dough and the like for baking. 

Also I said above, you could rig for silent running by turning off noise makers when needed. If you ran on the surface, that's when you ran freezers and AC and what not, you were making plenty of noise then anyhow.