What's always funny to me is how some folks who, by the way they talk, seem obviously more interested in Uboats, like to use Ice cream machines as a point of ridicule. As if Ice cream machines were standard equipment or something.
They were actually Jerry rigged devices. Made out of "acquired" and salvaged parts; Producing ice cream that often had a taste of hydraulic oil with metal bits from gears. At least at first, until the crews perfected it. It was something that one boat did, and as time went on, other boats got in on the act and made some ice creamers of their own.
This "point of ridicule" in reality highlights the ingenuity that existed among the men that fought in these submarines. It's been said by one Naval author of the time, that submariners were "Born gadgeteers". One rumor has it that one crew disassembled an entire jeep and ferreted it away in the engine rooms before going on patrol. Jeeps arent all that big, so i suppose its possible.
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