Dutch submarines in WW2 had bottles of red wine on board. The idea was that a glass of wine would increase the red blood cells. This was because apparently they found out that submariners had a decrease of hematocrit. So, every Dutch submariner received a glass of red wine every day.
Beer was also not unusual and carried on board.
Most US Navy boats only carried a bottle of whisky for "Medicinal Purposes", which was sometimes used for other uses. Fluckey was one of only a very few that carried beer on board for his crew. Actually it wasn't allowed, but hey who's gonna tell a very productive skipper to stop something.
A nice anecdote is that when the USS Cod rescued the sailors of the Dutch O19 the Americans came across the red wine (and some cases of whisky which were intended for the British subtender (HMS Maidstone))
They immediately started drinking the stuff. Some came back on board of the Cod trying to smuggle the booze on board.
According to the navigation officer of the O19 some of them were pretty drunk...
Groetjes,
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Gino
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