Features of Japanese underwater lunch

We touched on an interesting topic that was promised to be continued. At first I thought of touching the Germans, but no. The image of a stinking and unshaven homeless man in a sweater stained with various substances – a German submariner – has become too firmly established in our heads thanks to Hollywood films. So we will wait with him, it makes sense.
Yes, the cluttered corners of a WWII submarine, the food from bowls on your lap, the two of you sleeping in one bunk – that was it. The other question is why, and there is an answer to that, so everything has its time.
Today I would like to show you the world of a healthy submariner, an example from the other side of our world – from Japan.

Yes, many may be surprised that Japanese submariners lived in royal conditions compared to their colleagues from Germany and the USSR, but it is a fact. To be honest, the living conditions of Japanese sailors should be compared with the Americans, but we will do this a little later, at the very end of our showdown.
And now it should be noted that there is a slight inaccuracy in comparing boats and everyday life, and here's why: Soviet and German submarines are sea-going. And they were intended mainly for operations in the conditions of continental seas - the Baltic, Black, North, and were developed precisely for such conditions. The fact that the Germans were carried away to the Atlantic - when the same boats of the IX series were being developed, no one even thought about this.
The same with ours: the most common submarine of the Shch series, which carried the entire war, is just one of those. Not far from its shores and all that. And when we got the K series boats, for some reason they were sent to the Baltic, where they didn’t really show themselves – the conditions weren’t for them.
The Japanese initially built ocean submarines. Large and with excellent characteristics. I will now give a comparison of several parameters that are important to us on today's topic: size, cruising range and autonomy, since everything depended on them in terms of everyday life.

As you can see, the Japanese boat was… somewhat larger than the Soviet and German ones. And it is worth remembering that the average Japanese was smaller than a European. About the same as European boats were smaller than Japanese ones. If you calculate the volume of the boat, then the Japanese sailor was entitled to many more cubic meters of boat than his colleagues.
Plus a very important point - the peculiarities of national cuisine. This will become clear below, from the menu of the Japanese submarine.
But in the original principle of crew accommodation, the Japanese submarine was better in that each crew member had his own sleeping place. On the I-15 type boat taken as an example, there were 11 fixed bunks for 11 regular officers and warrant officers, the captain, of course, had his own cabin, as well as 1 hanging bunk and 5 sofas in the wardroom, which could be used for rest. This allowed any boat to become the flagship of the flotilla and place the headquarters on board.

For 73 regular petty officers and sailors, there were 91 sleeping places on lockers or in hanging bunks on a rigid frame. As you can see in the photo, along the entire length of the compartment there are lockers for the sailors' personal belongings. One locker had three sections: the first for the sailor who slept on it, and two for those who were accommodated in the hanging bunks of the second and third tiers. Various shelves and lockers were fixed on the bulkheads and wherever there was free space.
The I-15 type boats had as many as four latrines: one above-water one in the enclosure of the wheelhouse on the deck and three inside the boat – one for the officer and two for the crew (in the bow and stern, respectively, so that the sailors did not have to run across the entire boat).
There was a general command wash basin in the central control room and a separate small wash basin in the officer's compartment, next to the latrine. The officer's compartment was located behind the central control room.
In principle, the only thing missing was showers. Considering how long the Japanese went on expeditions and where they were taken, three months in a pig-like state is hard on any skin. Water-alcohol solutions and… squalls, which are not uncommon in the waters of the tropical and subtropical latitudes of the Pacific Ocean, came to the rescue. So, at least, the Japanese submariners could afford to rinse themselves with fresh water from a cloud.
Well, if you had to act further north, then yes, alcohol with water and napkins. I read this fabrication from one not very clean "writer" from among ours, who are no longer ours:
Yes, this is still washing up on our shores, but I am pleased to note that on Soviet submarines of that time, each crew member was entitled to 20 ml of alcohol per day specifically for hygiene procedures. And the sailors did not drink this alcohol, moreover, I read with my own eyes the reports of the Black Sea Fleet and Baltic Fleet supply officers, who complained that the sailors did not want to drink alcohol and asked for wine to be issued on the boats.
And then, 50 grams of vodka equivalent is not much fun, especially if you consider that if you get caught, the political officer will simply eat your brain, and what's worse, you can easily stock up on fungus. And there were no doctors on our submarines, that's a fact. So it's somehow more believable that the Red Navy sailors observed hygiene procedures, no matter for what reason.
The Japanese didn't have regular doctors on their crews either, but if a submarine went out for three months to chase the British into the Indian Ocean, a doctor from the submarine brigade's medical staff was assigned on board. Usually these were paramedics with the rank of midshipman, but still, much better than nothing.
In general, Japanese sailors, who were so obsessed with traditions, would hardly allow themselves to look like "Doenitz's wolves". It was very difficult there with all their codes. Of course, during the campaign there were some relaxations in terms of appearance, but the Japanese put themselves in order before arriving at the base, and not after, as the Germans did.

But principles and traditions are good, but it's better when they are backed up by scientific and technological progress. And the Japanese had it all sorted out.
The Japanese created Freon as a refrigerant long before the war, Daikin equipped a passenger train with air conditioners back in 1936, and in 1938 began supplying its Mifugirator air conditioners to the Imperial Navy's submarines.
Yes, the Germans didn't really need air conditioners in the northern seas, ours had a Charter that clearly spelled out the hardships and deprivations of military service, and the Japanese, who were planning to fight in very warm seas, had both refrigerators and air conditioners. The I-15, taken as an example, had both.
First of all, the battery pits were cooled and ventilated. Overheating and explosion of batteries - that's it, the end is without a chance. That's why the I-15 type boats had two refrigeration units, each with a capacity of 25 kcal on freon. This capacity was enough to cool not only the battery pits, but also artillery cellars and living quarters.
Plus, the crew had freezers for food and a separate refrigerator for the officers.
And this was already in the 30s of the last century. Obviously, the navy in Japan is a source of pride at all times, because Japanese pilots then flew plywood planes armed with rifle-caliber machine guns, and sailors had at their disposal everything that the designer's imagination could think of.
To be fair, let's note that the Italians and Americans also equipped their submarines with refrigeration equipment. But we'll talk about them later, as well as about the German achievements of Project XXI. But the Germans sent the first such submarine on a campaign on 30.04.1945, and for the Japanese this had become the norm long before the war.
That's why in the photos of that time (unlike the German ones) you won't see naked and sweaty Japanese sailors. Unlike the German ones.

Of course, one can assume that only staged footage leaked onto the Internet, but the presence of refrigerators and air conditioners suggests that something like this could have been quite common.



Galley. This sacred place for a submariner of any country was equipped quite decently: a stove with two burners, an oven and a steamer-rice cooker. That is, in one period of time you could immediately cook rice, without which the Japanese do not live, tea and something else, like miso soup.
On a boat with a large crew, two such stoves were installed. On the "I-15" the galley was located on the starboard side, behind the central post, next to the officer's wardroom.
What did they eat?
This is where it gets really interesting. The elite of the fleet (and in Japan submariners were considered to be exactly that) ate richly, not like the rest of the fleet: the basis of the diet for both officers and enlisted men was white polished rice, while in the rest of the fleet only officers and warrant officers were allowed white rice. Sailors and petty officers had to eat noodles and a mixture of 2/3 rice and 1/3 barley (pearl barley).
Since the equipment allowed, we took meat (beef, pork, rabbit) and poultry in decent quantities (not for 2-3 days, like ours). Without bones. In addition, there was always fish fillet and fresh vegetables.
For everyday use there was rice, beans, noodles, various marinades, wheat flour, soy sauce, vinegar, vegetable oil, beef fat, miso, salt, sugar, dried fish shavings, various sauces, and dried seasonings.
For additional enhanced rations, eggs, canned milk, and vitamins A, B, and C were taken.
The main drink was green tea, for variety we took red tea (we call it black), cocoa, coffee, and fruit juices.
Regarding the "imperial", that is, alcohol on board. It was there, but it was not given out daily, as with ours or the Germans. Rather, it was a method of stimulation or encouragement.
It is clear that the refrigerators were not able to accommodate everything necessary for the life of almost a hundred people for 90 days. This means meat, fish, fresh vegetables and fruits. Therefore, the main part of fresh vegetables were onions, sweet potatoes and lotus root, which are stored for a long time and without problems, and dried, pickled and canned vegetables made up a considerable part of the provisions. Especially pickled and pickled, this is also a Japanese tradition.
But regular canned food was not cancelled either. Stewed meat is a classic, everyone had it. But in addition to beef, the Japanese used huge quantities of stewed whale meat. In addition, canned ivashi, mackerel, and eel were also brought on board. Red rice and tofu were canned.
Well, in the southern seas, the Japanese easily got fresh fish. It often fell on the deck itself, all that was left was to collect and fry it. Fried flying fish is a tasty thing not only from the point of view of the Japanese. Thor Heyerdahl and the crew of the Kon-Tiki raft paid tribute to these beautiful creatures in terms of culinary beauty, too.
An interesting description of food on a submarine can be read in the book Operation Storm by John Geoghegan:
Rice was served at every meal, and the galley even prepared such delicacies as beef tongue, boiled eel, and sweet bean paste. Main courses included fried fish, shrimp or vegetable tempura, beefsteak, pork cutlets, eggs, pickled horseradish, dried nori seaweed, chestnuts, fresh oranges, canned peaches, pears, and pineapple, fruit juices or soda, and miso soup for breakfast. Green tea was drunk in large quantities, and coffee in smaller quantities, although it was available.
Dinner consisted of noodles or cookies with milk. Some Sixth Fleet submarines even had ice cream, though it was usually reserved for special occasions, such as the last meal before a dangerous mission. In fact, after weeks at sea, one of the I-400's cooks decided to try simpler dishes like brown rice and pickled plums.
The onboard dietician planned every meal, even though fresh vegetables ran out by the tenth day of sailing. After that, we ate canned food morning, noon, and night, with onions thrown in for variety. Canned vegetables were particularly unpopular because they tasted like sand and ash. The crew could only eat so many canned sweet potatoes before they started complaining.
Vitamins in bottles were given with each meal, as vitamin deficiency was not uncommon on long voyages. However, the real problem with food on I-401 was that, due to the size of the submarine, far fewer flying fish made it onto the deck."
Each petty officer and sailor in the Japanese fleet was entitled to a 4-piece table set, made in the national style:

In our understanding, these vessels can be divided by functionality into:
- deep soup bowl;
- deep rice bowl;
- a small plate for snacks;
- a tea bowl.
Tableware for enlisted personnel was made of steel and covered with enamel, tableware for officers was porcelain. The enamel was white inside and blue outside, a stamp in the form of a sea anchor was placed on the tableware, indicating its affiliation. Due to the absence of handles and specially selected sizes, the tableware set could be easily folded like a "matryoshka" and took up a minimum of space when stored.

An example of serving breakfast for two sailors
On the right is a plate of miso soup, without which a Japanese breakfast is not breakfast. On the left is a plate of rice, which is used instead of bread. A plate of pickles in the middle, one for two. A teapot with tea and bowls are set aside until their turn comes.
Well, here is the most classic Japanese breakfast (it has been like this for the last four hundred years or more), transferred underwater. Miso soup with vegetables, rice, some pickles/marinades to go with it, and green tea. And breakfast does not take place on your knees, but at a completely normal table. For the Japanese, for whom conformity to the norms established by their ancestors played the role of psychological support, this process was quite important. In fact, the meal replaced the speech of a political worker.
So miso, rice, traditional Japanese pickles and marinades played a supporting role no less than the delicacies.
However, 90 days is a very long time. So in the second half of this period, dried vegetables and canned goods made up the bulk of the Japanese sailors' diet. Canned vegetables were not popular, the exception being canned sweet potatoes, which were not only edible, they were tasty.
Japanese canned meat also had a very specific taste. The large amount of soy sauce, ginger and sugar that was added during canning made them unique, but they got boring pretty quickly.
When submarine crews found themselves in difficult conditions such as storms or high temperatures in the tropics, people often lost their appetite. This was already mentioned in the story about our submariners, the Japanese were no different. True, in the heat they simply switched to rice and tea, not touching delicacies.
Examples of a non-wartime menu, 1940. Submarine S-65, patrolling the Indian Ocean
1.07.
Breakfast: soy soup (soy concentrate, soy cheese, eggplant, dried ivasi), lemon juice with ice and condensed milk, lemonade, rice with pearl barley.
Lunch: stewed meat with potatoes, canned pineapple, cocoa with condensed milk, sweet water with ice, white bread with jam.
Dinner: canned ivasi with marinated mushrooms, sweet water with ice, a portion of alcohol (rum), rice with pearl barley.
Night watch: wheat noodle soup with mushrooms.
2.07.
Breakfast: soy soup, lemon juice with ice and condensed milk, lemonade, rice with pearl barley.
Lunch: stewed meat with potatoes, mustard, canned medlar, canned pineapple, cocoa with condensed milk, sweet water with ice, white bread with jam.
Dinner: canned trout with potatoes, a portion of alcohol (rum), rice with pearl barley and ivashi.
Night watch: rice soup with vegetables.
12.08.
Breakfast: soy soup, lemon juice with condensed milk, ice, lemonade, white rice.
Lunch: sweet stew, canned vegetables, dried fish, canned pineapple, sweet water with ice, white rice.
Dinner: sweet stew, watermelon, cocoa with condensed milk, sweet water with ice, a portion of alcohol (rum), white bread, refined sugar.
Night watch: canned meat.
For comparison: rations for surface ships. Battleship Nagato, flagship of the Imperial Navy

24.05.
Breakfast: soy soup (soy concentrate, soy cheese, onion, fish flakes), radish, soy marinade, rice with pearl barley, green tea.
Lunch: curry (beef, sweet potato, radish, onion, curry powder), radish, soy marinade, rice with pearl barley, green tea.
Dinner: fried mackerel, hot sauce, pickled radish, rice with pearl barley, green tea.
25.05.
Breakfast: soy soup, pickled vegetables, rice with pearl barley, green tea.
Lunch: stew (stewed meat, onions, eggplant), white bread, refined sugar, green tea.
Dinner: boiled fish with lotus root, sauerkraut, rice with pearl barley, green tea.
26.05.
Breakfast: soy soup, soy pickles, rice with pearl barley, green tea.
Lunch: meat soup (beef, onion, eggplant), white bread, butter, refined sugar, green tea.
Dinner: boiled tuna with fried onions, pickles, rice with pearl barley, green tea.
27.5.1930 (Sunday)
Breakfast: soy soup, Chinese sauerkraut, rice with pearl barley, green tea.
Lunch: fish soup (fish flakes, soy cheese, onions), pickles, sweet pilaf (rice with pearl barley, beef, sweet potato, pumpkin, mushrooms, beans, refined sugar), green tea.
Dinner: soy soup with tuna, pickles, rice with pearl barley, green tea.
As you can see, the rations of surface ships were strikingly different from those of submariners. In favor of the latter. It is clear that sweet drinks and sugar were a form of encouragement. Submariners were given sweets quite often, but on surface ships this clearly did not happen as often as the personnel would have liked. In general, the Japanese are not spoiled by sugar even now, so in those days it was an encouragement or an enhanced ration.
What else could be said about the diet of Japanese submariners?

Nowadays, miso soup is usually made with chicken broth. It's hard to say what the military norms were at that time - broth or just water. Most likely, water with all the other additives. It's good that you can add a lot of things to miso, the main thing is that they go well together.
Soy cheese or soy curd? Well, yes, tofu. It's hard to say what it is, it's tofu. We've already stopped deciphering it as soy cheese or curd, and rightly so. We have such a dish - syrniki. Which for some reason are made from curd. And all because the dish is Ukrainian, and what we call curd, they call cheese. And here you have syrniki. Ask, what do they call our normal cheese? Simply - hard cheese! And it's the same with tofu.
The boats took a lot of tofu, because it goes into many dishes, but they mostly took canned tofu, fortunately this incomprehensible substrate can be marinated, salted, dried - in general, you can go crazy with it as much as you can.
Yamatoni. An essential attribute of the Japanese galley. It is a stew, but a sweet stew. Yamatoni is essentially a regular stew of cow, pig, chicken, rabbit, whale, seal, heavily seasoned with soy sauce, ginger and sugar.
There wasn't much meat per stomach - 180 grams per day. But if you consider how expensive meat is in Japan, then yes, the submariners were treated to the highest standard of service in this regard.
By the way, rice with pearl barley in a ratio of 7/3, as on the ships of the Imperial Navy, is the main food in Japanese prisons today. And 90 years ago, the elite on battleships were fed this way. Considering that in difficult times, the ratio of rice/barley for ordinary people was 3/7, or even 2/8, the situation, on the contrary, could only cause positive emotions in those who ended up in the navy.
Total

A very interesting imbalance in terms of habitability compared to the surface fleet. In almost all reviews and comparisons, the ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy did not look very good compared to the ships of other countries that participated in World War II. The cramped quarters for the crew and the lack of sufficient square meters per crew member were noted.
An example is the Japanese destroyers, which had simply stunning range, excellent sailing characteristics, but the crew, for example, often ate in the corridors due to the lack of sufficient space in the quarters. What can we say if with a standard displacement of 2700 tons, the 143-meter destroyer of the Akizuki type had a crew of 263 people! For comparison: 200 people serve on a modern destroyer Akizuki. And this is despite the fact that the modern Akizuki has twice the displacement of 5000 tons and is larger in size (length 150 m versus 143 m and width 18,3 m versus 11,2 m). One can imagine the situation in which the Japanese sailors found themselves on the destroyers during that war.
We won't even take into account the general backwardness of Japanese ships in terms of, as they would say now, high-tech equipment. The weakness and unreliability of Japanese radars is well known, as is the fact that they could not be used to guide artillery based on their data. The Defense.
Against this background, submarines looked somehow technologically advanced and more modern. And the living conditions on the Imperial Navy submarines were incomparable with the living conditions on the main classes of surface ships.
In total, Japanese submarines sank 194 ships and vessels with a total tonnage of 963 GRT, including 761 aircraft carriers, 2 escort aircraft carrier, 1 heavy cruiser, 1 light cruiser, and 1 destroyers. Of this number, 12 ships (73 GRT) were sunk in the Pacific Ocean and 353 ships (475 GRT) in the Indian Ocean.
Considering that Japan started the war with 63 submarines of all types, this is quite a result. One can calculate the dependence on good food and project it onto the result, but there is no need for this. Japanese submarines were very advanced ships, in terms of service conditions very different from other classes of ships of the Imperial Navy.
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