Ice cream barge
"Ice cream barge" is the colloquial term for a BRL. BRLs were towed vessels employed by the United States Navy in the Pacific theater of World War II to store frozen and refrigerated foodstuffs. They were also able to produce ice cream in large quantities to be provisioned to sailors and US Marines. Three in total were produced: USS Hydrogen, USS Calcium, and USS Antimony. The ships, concrete barges acquired from the US Army and worth one million dollars, stored 1,500 tons of frozen meat and 500 tons of refrigerated vegetables, eggs, and dairy products indefinitely at 15°F. To improve the morale of overseas troops, an ice cream freezer facility was included, able to create of ice cream every seven minutes, or approximately per shift, and could store. They were employed in the USN's Western Pacific area of operations, at one point anchored at Naval Base Ulithi. The army built three concrete barges of its own.
Some accounts link the U.S. Navy’s 1914 alcohol prohibition under General Order No. 99 to ice cream becoming a common morale-boosting substitute for sailors.
Design and construction
A 1945 article in Pacific Marine Review reported that three BRL-type refrigerated concrete barges were completed by Concrete Ship Constructors at National City, California, and delivered to the U.S. Army. The same report described a reinforced concrete hull 265 feet long, 48 feet in beam and 17 feet in depth, with an insulated wooden deckhouse and diesel-driven generators supplying power for the refrigeration machinery, including two 50-ton York ice machines.BRL-3071
The U.S. Navy logistics history Beans, Bullets, and Black Oil describes BRL-3071 as “a 1,000-ton refrigerated provision storage barge” at Buckner Bay. In early August 1945, the stores ship began unloading cargo into BRL-3071 for refrigerated storage and issue ashore/afloat.BRL-3071 also appears in the Navy and Marine Corps Awards Manual campaign participation listings with credited service dates from 13 to 30 June 1945.