What Was “Torpedo Juice” in World War II?
World War II-era military speak was full of colorful slang terms. For instance, a can of milk was known as an “armored cow.” Prunes, often sent to prisoners as part of Red Cross parcels, were called “Army strawberries.” A cup of coffee? That was “battery acid.” And then there was “torpedo juice,” a term that might seem like slang, but was the actual name of a drink consumed by soldiers.
Torpedo juice, sometimes referred to by the lesser-known moniker Torpedo Tessie, was a highly alcoholic cocktail with a surprisingly literal name. Torpedoes of the era were fueled by 180-proof ethanol, a very potent variant of essentially the same neutral grain alcohol found in beer, wine, and spirits. Because liquor wasn’t otherwise accessible, soldiers would drain a bit of the fuel from a torpedo and mix it with fruit juice. As World War II veteran and former torpedo operator Jim Nerison told the Anchorage Daily News, “The torpedo wasn’t going to use it all anyway, so we kind of tapped off a little bit of it.”
The resulting drink could be a dangerously strong highball. After all, 180-proof equates to 90% alcohol by volume. Most base spirits (that is, the liquors that cocktails are commonly made from, such as vodka, whiskey, and so on) average between 40% and 45% alcohol by volume, so using the same amount of torpedo fuel would result in a drink that was at least twice as potent as one made with a conventional liquor. The most popular fruit juice for mixing the drink was pineapple juice, though citrus juices (mainly orange, lemon, or grapefruit) were sometimes substituted. There wasn’t an exact recipe, but the mix ratio has been reported as somewhere between 1 part torpedo fuel to 3 parts fruit juice, and 2 parts torpedo fuel to 3 parts fruit juice — not very much dilution!
Eventually, the U.S. Navy caught on to the practice and sought to prevent its rank and file from drinking weapons fuel. Torpedo fuel began to be formulated with an additive called Pink Lady, a blend of toxic methanol along with red dye to provide a visual warning. Later, the fuel was formulated with less harmful but still unpleasant Croton oil. Neither of these poisonous formulas did much to curtail the making of torpedo juice, as soldiers found ways to distill the fuel and remove the toxins. During a 1964 Pearl Harbor reunion, a veteran (who wished to remain anonymous) described his process to the Omaha World-Tribune: “I had an in with the bake shop. We’d strain the juice from the torpedo through at least six loaves of bread to take out the oil and other impurities. Then I’d boil it and distill it through some copper tubing… We’d get a half cup… to a gallon of juice that way.”
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Still, drinking torpedo juice was dangerous, as not every distilling method succeeded. A Navy hospital corps member named Norton Lund told the Anchorage Daily News, “We had guys drinking [torpedo juice]. We got a couple of guys that got the wrong stuff. You can go blind from it and you can die from it. We had that problem.” During a 1943 tour of the war’s Pacific theater, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt observed, “Last night, four men died from drinking distilled shellac,” likely referring to torpedo juice. And in an interview with the Armed Forces in Oklahoma Oral History Project, veteran Thomas Duncan recalled a time when a 22-year-old soldier died in his sleep after drinking torpedo juice. In his telling, it’s unclear whether the death was caused by unsuccessful toxin removal, or simply alcohol poisoning from too much of the potent cocktail.
Ultimately, what spelled the end of torpedo fuel was the introduction of the Westinghouse Mark 18, an electric-drive battery-powered torpedo. The battery power meant no need for fuel, so there was no alcohol to harvest from the weapon. This didn’t necessarily mean the end of military moonshine altogether, however, and illicit alcohol of dubious origin was referred to as “torpedo juice” long after the last torpedo-derived cocktail was consumed.
