The Concrete Ice Cream Barges That Fed the Pacific
B5-BJ2 – Ice Cream Barges – Concrete Ship Constructors (2023)
During World War II, Concrete Ship Constructors built three unpowered refrigerated barges from concrete. Each 265-foot vessel could produce 500 gallons of ice cream daily and store 1,000 tons of frozen meat and produce. Towed across the Pacific, they supplied fresh food and ice to troops and small ships. The first, Hydrogen, reached the war zone in early 1945, though its refrigeration system needed extensive repairs before deployment.
Five hundred gallons of ice cream can be made daily.
- ceejayoz
There's a (likely apocryphal) story of a Japanese official realizing they'd lost the war when these showed up, as it indicated a level of spare industrial capacity and logistics while Japanese troops were struggling to stay fed at all.
- gwbas1c
> It used a combination of pumped brine, and Freon Gas, which is a non-combustible gas, still used today as a refrigerant in air conditioning applications.
Freon (from then) is generally illegal to use today, as it depletes ozone. As a trademark, the name is often applied to newer refrigerants.
- guyzero
I'm curious how they got the raw material to them. You can't make 5 tons of ice cream a day out of thin air. Were they shipped premixed sugar & milk or did they get straight raw ingredients and mix them onsite? I feel like the refrigeration capabilities are a pretty small part of the supply chain required to actually produce ice cream. Did they get a floating milk tanker to stop by every few days? Were they loaded on shore and just made do with what they had until the next port call?