Unlike the rest of the United States, the Navy’s Prohibition Era will likely never end. The early 20th-century trend away from alcohol use spread to the Navy in 1914, when Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels issued General Order No. 99, banning liquor aboard Naval vessels. It ended more than a hundred years of privilege and tradition.
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While all the other Americans had learned from their mistakes by 1933, flooding the streets with booze the moment Prohibition ended, the Navy never did. But before they tipped the grog, they tipped their glasses one last time—often with those who would soon be their enemy.
For years, the Navy had already been reducing the amount of alcohol aboard its ships. Until 1899, sailors could keep their own stocks of booze on the ships. When Daniels issued Order 99, the commanders of the Navy’s ships still had a massive store of the stuff. They tried to sell off what they could of their great stores of liquor, but—amazingly—there was just so much of it and not enough buyers for it all.
They couldn’t let all that hooch go to waste.
Each ship was about to use what was left of its stores of alcohol on the day before it was supposed to be completely dry. Some of them got creative with just how.
There were parties, banquets, and even a funeral mourning the death of the tradition aboard the American vessels around the world. Some of the ships, docked or stationed around Veracruz or occupying Mexican ports in 1914, even invited those from other countries to join them in their massive toast to the end of the tradition.
British, French, German, Spanish, and Dutch naval officers and men began making their way to American ships to get a taste of the punch being slung by America’s global force for good. The international house party would be one of the last times these European powers spent time together instead of trying to kill one another, because World War I was going to kick off later that month.
Elsewhere around the world, even where the U.S. wasn’t an occupying force, the Navy held similar parties for their dear friend booze. But in 1933, even though the rest of the country voted liquor back into their lives, alcohol did not find its way back to any ship’s stores.
That’s what shore leave is for.
