What a great story. Thanks and happy Sunday.
Actually, Asian beer is pretty good.
The British used be really inventive.
Cool.
5.56mm
Which gallons? There are no fewer than a dozen different volumes called a gallon. I assume Imperial...
Nice work learned somthin.
“... the memories of one of the most ingenious creations by the British army to date.” [original article, final sentence]
Author Samantha Flaum got it partly wrong. The Royal Navy, not the British Army, refit HMS Menestheus and sent her out to brew beer for troops in the forward areas.
The “amenity ship” concept was not invented for World War Two.
During World War One, the Grand Fleet - a significant percentage of the Royal Navy’s surface-ship strength - spent much of its time in Scapa Flow, a protected anchorage in the Orkney Islands north of the northern tip of Scotland, on alert to intercept Imperial Germany’s High Seas Fleet, should it emerge from Wilhelmshaven.
Scapa Flow had no connection to the rail network of the British Isles, so resupply and sustainment for dozens of warships and 60,000 to 100,000 men had to arrive by sea, from ports on the Scots mainland.
And supplies were needed, by the ton: “...everything had to be brought by ship: coal, oil, ammunition, and food. Every month, 320 tons of meat, 800 tons of potatoes, 6,000 bags of flour (each weighing 140 pounds), 1,500 bags of sugar (each weighing 120 pounds), and 80,000 loaves of bread were delivered to the fleet...the most important delivery was the daily mail, brought around to all ships every morning except when the seas were too high for the mail boat to come alongside.” (p. 570, Robert K Massie, _Castles of Steel_, New York: Random House, 2003. ISBN 0-679-45671-6).
“Two service ships, both primarily storage lockers for frozen, meat, played important roles...Borodino became a nautical canteen...dispensing extras and luxuries...Ghourko was the theater ship, fitted with a stage” and 600 seats (ibid, p. 572)