In World War II, the U.S. had ships that made ice cream.

U.S. sailors enjoying a tub of ice cream

The combination of Prohibition and improved freezing technology ignited a spike in ice cream consumption among Americans in the early 20th century, and cravings for the cold, sweet treat were no less keenly felt among those who served in the Armed Forces. Seeking to keep its personnel satiated, the U.S. Navy began installing ice cream makers on its ships, even rigging some vessels with full-blown soda fountains reminiscent of those found in a corner drugstore. But the Army took this idea one step further in the late stages of World War II, by deploying three ice cream barges with the purpose of delivering this delicious morale-booster throughout the Pacific Theater.

Known as a “BRL,” for “barge, refrigerated, large,” each concrete vessel measured 265 feet long by 48 feet wide and about 17.5 feet deep, and provided a refrigerated space of approximately 130,000 cubic feet. One of the three main compartments housed the ice cream-making room, which was capable of producing up to 500 gallons of the frosty stuff on a daily basis. With virtually all power aboard devoted to the cooling machinery, the BRLs lacked the ability to get anywhere by themselves, and as such were towed to far-flung areas of the Pacific for distribution of goods to other ships and stationed troops.

To be clear, these barges weren’t simply giant floating ice cream parlors; they also had the capacity to store some 64 carloads of meat and around 20,000 cubic feet of fresh produce, eggs, and cheese. Of course, when it came to reclaiming a taste of luxury, the war-weary soldiers were far more likely to line up for scoops of chocolate and vanilla than for a banana.
Those who were out of range of BRLs and auxiliary delivery ships didn’t have to worry about missing out, as the Army saw to it that troops on the Western Front and other crucial zones were duly stocked with the frozen treat. Some U.S. aviators even devised a creative way to enjoy their portions, as they left cans of prepared ice cream mixture in their B-17 bombers to be shaken and frozen amid the turbulence of high-altitude flights.

By the Numbers

Did you know?

Baskin-Robbins’ co-founder developed his first recipes while serving in the Navy in WWII.

It’s possible the U.S. military’s devotion to ice cream helped shape the course of dessert history for connoisseurs. While running a Navy PX store in the South Pacific island group now known as Vanuatu, Lieutenant Burt Baskin reportedly traded a jeep for an aircraft carrier’s ice cream freezer to store his creamy creations made from local fruits. Following the war, Baskin was encouraged to enter the ice cream business by his brother-in-law Irv Robbins, himself an Army veteran who already owned three ice cream stores in Southern California. The two joined forces by the late 1940s, and with the launch of their rebranded Baskin-Robbins enterprise in 1953, the country came to love the duo’s ever-rotating carousel of “31 flavors” that reflected Baskin’s early kitchen experiments in that remote Navy outpost.