Did the submariners bathe on WW2 military submarines?

Question

Do they bathe on modern day subs?

Answer 1

They rarely if ever bathed in WW2 submarines. Their more primitive designs left very little room for such luxuries- if you can operate a submarine all grimy, then a shower stall is not a priority in a ship's construction.



Of course modern submarines would have had at least some facilities. In fact much of the resistance to female submarine operators was that they'd have to include a separate facility to accommodate gender boundaries.

Answer 2

"Did the submariners bathe on WW2 military submarines?"



UBoats had a [one] water closet in each ship yes.

Did the crewmen use them - rarely. Between one room for a whole crew that has to be shared, fresh water having better uses, action stations, heavy seas the use of showers was seldom.

I'm sure the same can be said of any submarine of the same era.



Modern day submarines always look so clean when shown on the History channel, the crew all clean shaven and shiny so seems the crew do bathe... albeit that would likely not be the scenario during wartime.

Answer 3

Most WW2 military submarines were semi-submersibles in modern terms. They spent most of their time on the surface so the crew could have bathed in brine and washed off with their own water supply.



Only right at the end of the war did the Germans invent the modern submarine.



TDers eat this:

With the Type XXI "Elektroboot", German designers realized the U-boat depended on submerged ability both for combat effectiveness and survival; this was the first submarine whose design favored submerged performance. The Type XXI featured a revolutionary streamlined hull design, which was the basis for the later USS Nautilus nuclear submarine. Its propulsion system featured a large battery capacity, which allowed it to cruise submerged for long periods and reach unprecedented submerged speeds. A larger battery was possible because the space it occupied was originally intended to store hydrogen peroxide for a Walter turbine, which was unsuccessful on the Type XVII.

Answer 4

Fresh water was limited, but there was a shower available for crewmen. Much better facilities on modern subs. Very good desalinization facilities, too, so fresh water is less of a problem.

Answer 5

Yes they bathe on modern subs and yes they bathed on subs during WWII, though not as frequently as today

Answer 6

In WW2 they used the bathrooms to store food/supplies and maybe fuel cans, no room could be spared for a shower that they would never use anyway.