Named for the 180-proof ethyl alcohol that powered American torpedoes, the concoction was consumed throughout the Navy and beyond.
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During the war, Jim Nerison was a torpedoman on a patrol torpedo boat, the PT-305, nicknamed the USS Sudden Jerk. He recalled, “The torpedo wasn’t going to use it all anyway, so we kind of tapped off a little bit of it.” As Sen. Russell B. Long declared in a hearing, “The first thing a good skipper did was to make sure that his crew had not consumed the alcohol in the steering mechanism of that torpedo.” The Louisianan spoke from experience, from his own time in the Navy during the war.
For years, “juice” was a common nickname for sailors assigned to the torpedo room, a tradition that lasted longer than its inspiration. Norman Carroll was a torpedoman on the submarine USS Guitarro. He noted that when cargo arrived, “we had this daisy chain of food being loaded on the ship, we always had a torpedoman at the gangway where the food came. He steered all the fruit juices and good stuff to the after-torpedo room.
Given their titular origin, torpedo juice was a Navy specialty though desired in trade with members of all service branches. Alcohol was a literal liquid currency and typically more popular than actual money. Back in 1914, the Navy officially prohibited “the use or introduction for drinking purposes of alcoholic liquors on board any naval vessel, or within any navy yard or station.” The pursuit of potent libations by sailors thereafter slowed but certainly did not cease.
In 1946, the 145th Naval Construction Battalion — Seabees — published a regimental history that included advice on reentering society. “If you are entertaining at home and plan serving any stimulants, you must be very careful. It has been your experience overseas that such drinks as varnish remover and grapefruit juice, hair tonic, or an invigorating combination of torpedo juice and water are highly acceptable. Your civilian friends are more discriminating.
If bread worked as a filter, it was only in combination with other efforts, like distillation. Homemade stills of varying complexity were treasured secrets of many military installations and larger ships. These were called gilly stills. And the product from the stills was sometimes called gilly juice or simply gilly.
To be clear, torpedo juice was an overpowering, often deadly liquor, more so if makeshift stills and loaves of bread failed to remove the poisonous methanol. Thomas Duncan grew up in Tennessee and volunteered for the Navy after Pearl Harbor. His memories of torpedo juice were marked by tragedy. He said, “We had a guy — some of the guys knew how to fix it, mix it with some kind of juice or something. This guy drank some, and it was his day off. 22 .
The commanding officer ordered Lipes to proceed with an appendectomy. Lipes employed torpedo juice to roughly sterilize the pajamas used as scrubs, his gloves, the instruments, and Rector’s skin. After the appendix was removed, the stump was cauterized with carbolic acid and then washed with more torpedo juice to neutralize the acid. Against all odds, Rector recovered quickly.
Electric torpedoes, beginning with the Mark 18 first introduced in 1943, meant the end of proper torpedo juice. But the name survived. Any rotgut that brought back wartime memories for returning sailors might be called torpedo juice, for a similar taste if dissimilar origin. And of course, service members continued to experiment with intoxicants. During the Vietnam War, some soldiers chewed bits of C-4 explosive to get high. When ingested, C-4 causes nausea, vomiting, and seizures.
Capraun, Edward. DESA Oral History Project. By Thomas Greene. November 16, 2002. Monmouth University Library.Downing-Turner, M. Elizabeth, and Michael Davis, editors. “Memories: The Crew of the USS Abner Read DD-526, Second Edition.” Monographs 28 .
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