[Powerbits]

British troops released from a German ww2 prison camp are enjoying a fine pint of premium English beer for the first time in years. This keg came from H & G Simonds Brewery, Reading in Berkshire.

British breweries set up a “beer for troops” committee in July 1942. “It is a national duty that every brewer should do his utmost to supply beer for troops in their messes, many of which are a long distance from the nearest licensed premises”.
A long way, indeed–in Muslim-dominated areas of the Middle East and northern Africa, alcohol was completely forbidden (although often still available). Local culture notwithstanding, Whitbread and Wanted sent 500 cases of beer to honor ” the defenders of Tobruk” in North Africa, the arrival of which was celebrated long afterward. Camp-following breweries, such as Bushell, Watkins & Smith of Westerham, even strapped beer casks beneath the wings of fighter planes for the great D-Day Invasion of June 1944.

American breweries were also generous to soldiers, but not voluntarily. The US Department of Agriculture actually ordered that 15 percent of all beer production in the United States be set aside for the troops, which amounted to a bigger ration of beer than the average citizen received. With the advantage of large canning lines, and a normal original gravity of 1045, American wartime beers were also much stronger than those from the United Kingdom. One interesting footnote: many cans of American beer during the war were painted olive drab to camouflage them from enemy aircraft.

BEER AFLOAT
Britain’s Royal Navy in 1944 launched the most ambitious plan for supplying soldiers with beer during World War II. Anticipating a long war in the Pacific, with impending shortages of beer for sailors on the high seas, the navy selected Adlams, brewery engineers based in Bristol, to design a “brewing boat” capable of making 250 barrels of beer per week using malt extract. Two former minesweepers, the Agamemnon and the Menestheus, were chosen for the project and sent to Vancouver, Canada, in the summer of 1945 to be outfitted.
But the war, or rather the lack of it, got in the way. After atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese surrendered on August 14, 1945. Meanwhile, the first test brew on board the “beer boat” was not completed until December 31, 1945, in Vancouver. Only the Menestheus was equipped with what was called the “Davy Jones Brewery.” It was sent on a single, somewhat meaningless voyage to Yokohama, Shanghai, and Hong Kong and other Pacific ports to dispense to sailors and visiting dignitaries just one brew, an English mild ale. After barely six months as a brewery, the Menestheus sailed back to England and her brew house was dismantled. Such a project was never undertaken again.

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