Operation Frozen ——— Fighter Ice Cream Revealed!
Americans love ice cream very much, and for a long time have been the country with the largest consumption of ice cream in the world——— of course, today it is China.
As early as 1906, the USS Missouri (BB11, the second ship of the Maine-class battleships, was built in 1903, not the Later Iowa-class battleship BB63, which was built in 1940 and commissioned in 1944), became the first warship to install an ice cream machine on a warship, and soon ice cream became a reserved item on the menu of the Navy's large warships——— because only large warships would install ice cream machines. After Prohibition came into effect in 1920, ice cream became an important material for maintaining order among sailors.
In World War II, because the ice cream machine could only be installed in warships above the level of heavy cruisers, an unwritten reward rule for small ships such as destroyers that did not have ice cream machines was the main motivation to drive them to rescue aircraft carriers, battleships, and cruiser pilots. Because for every pilot who falls into the water, his warship needs to reward the rescue unit with 20 liters of ice cream (not the legendary pilot weight), and, if the pilot is an ace pilot (more than 5 crash records), 40 liters, super ace, 60 liters.
The highest ransom recorded in the war is said to have occurred during the Battle of mariana, when a destroyer rescued Captain William Kane, the VF-10 squadron leader of the Enterprise (radio caller killer, with a total record of 17 aircraft, 7th overall record of U.S. aircraft carrier-based fighter pilots in World War II), and nakedly sent the Enterprise through lights to the most famous kidnapping blackmail during the war " How much ice cream is the killer Kane worth?" After some haggling, the Enterprise redeemed his fighter squadron leader with 95 liters of ice cream.
In order to comfort the destroyers and other small boat sailors who did not have the opportunity to fish for pilots, the Americans simply arranged an IX-150 quartz USS Quatrz ice cream barge in the rear anchorage, which was able to make 5,000 gallons of ice cream per day, which became the sweetest memory of sailors——— perhaps because of this accumulated merit, so the Quartz, which was later pulled to participate in the cross-road nuclear test as a target ship, miraculously survived, and can still be seen in Bikini Atoll today.........
In addition, on naval warships that emphasized class differences, waiting in line for ice cream was the only occasion when officers and men were equally unanimous——— there were passages of Admiral Halsey of the Bull angrily denouncing attempts to cut in the ranks of officers, and MacArthur snatching ice cream from the chief of staff.
In contrast, the U.S. Navy's main rival, the Imperial Japanese Navy IJN, had only four warships equipped with ice cream machines in total—in addition to the Yamato Hotel/Musashi Goten, the Food Ship Mamiya, nicknamed "Floating Ginza," "Idol of the Combined Fleet," and "The Source of Morale Supply for the Combined Fleet," and The Irako, the successor of the Mamiya. Every time the Mamiya arrives at the anchorage, it is absolutely surrounded by dinghies sent by other warships, snapping up the famous Mamiya yokan and ice cream——— the latter limited to 2,000 servings per day.
The victory or defeat of the Pacific War actually depended on the number and production capacity of the ice cream machines on both sides.
Okay, let's get back to the topic.
As mentioned earlier, the ice cream machine was not a popular standard configuration at that time, and even the destroyer was not matched, and other small troops could be imagined.
In 1944, the Marine Corps VMF-122 Werewolf Squadron stationed on the Island of Peleliu in the Palau Archipelago was one such unit that was not worthy of an ice cream machine, but the commander, Lieutenant Colonel Hunter Reinborough, noticed that his troops were slipping during a boring mission ten minutes away from the Japanese-occupied island of Palau (frog jumping tactics, where the Americans cut off the Supply Line of Palau, which was heavily defended by the Japanese by landing at Beriliu), and he decided to make ice cream.
He used a secondary fuel tank + a waterproof ammunition tank, loaded with 5 gallons of canned milk and cocoa powder mixture, and then planned to use the squadron's F4U fighter jets to fly high in the air raid, using the low temperature of minus 44 degrees at a high altitude to make an ice cream ——— the reason for flying to the sky, in the official report, was written as "testing the high-altitude oxygen supply system".
The first test failed, and he brought back only some frozen drinks because the pod was too close to the engine exhaust pipe, causing overheating.
So they moved the pod under the wing and expanded the capacity to 10 gallons. Lieutenant Colonel Rhineberg also reported to his superiors that a "high-altitude test turbocharger" was needed, and then flew high into the air at the fastest speed and then flew back at the fastest speed.
The second time they tested it, they brought back a large lump of ice, and although it was a significant improvement, it was not the ice cream in mind. Although the squadron thus opened up a reliable supply path for frozen beer, ice cream is still far away!
Finally, after several failed trials, it was conceived that the secret of ice cream was constantly stirring during the condensation process. So they installed a ram propeller at the front of the pod, driving a spindle through the waterproof ammunition box and stirring continuously!
They succeeded. They even figured out a complete production process, including how to fly high into the air as quickly as possible, how long to stay to ensure the best taste, and how to return to the ground as quickly as possible!
In order to keep the secret, this series of activities was code-named "Operation Frozen". But confused as to why VFM122 Squadron was always asking for high-altitude test flights, the Naval Engineers and Transport Units stationed on the island who discovered the secret of ice cream/cold beer behind the squadron's high morale soon discovered the truth——— agreed to approve the squadron's daily high-altitude tests, Colonel Bailey, and the Naval Transport and Engineer Unit, who threatened to cut off fuel and site support, and satisfactorily distributed their ice cream. And this technology of making ice cream with fighter jets quickly spread throughout the Pacific Theater...
In fact, the VFM122 is not the only U.S. military unit to fly high to make ice cream, the B-17 crew that bombed Europe and the P-47 squadron escorting the air did the same thing——— but the 122 squadron was the only one to invent the aerial mixing process!
