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Blog Post Title: “What Type Of Fuel Did WWII Warships Use?”
Blog Post Content:
Modern warships primarily use three fuel sources: gasoline, diesel, and nuclear power. Yet one of those technologies wouldn’t arrive until the world’s first nuclear submarine, the USS Nautilus (SSN-571), entered the fleet in 1954. A decade earlier, WWII warships used a variety of fuels to move across the water, depending on a ship’s age and who operated it. There were four main fuel types that WWII warships used, including diesel fuel, gasoline, fuel oil, and coal.
Coal was mostly gone by the time the war ended, but some of the older ships used in the conflict continued to feature coal furnaces. The U.S. Navy used two of the weirdest ships in the fleet during the conflict: two converted paddle-wheel steamers to train personnel, and both used coal. Most vessels used diesel or heavy fuel oil, while smaller vessels like PT boats used 100-octane aviation gasoline. German U-boats, which caused widespread disruption throughout the Atlantic Ocean, used diesel fuel, as did American subs, so there was a variety of fuel types utilized throughout the conflict.
The many fuels of WWII warships
U.S. Navy/Wikimedia Commons
Most of the ships that used coal in the early 20th century had either been decommissioned or converted by the time WWII rolled around. The last U.S. Navy battleship fueled by coal was the USS Texas (BB-35), but it was converted to oil-fired boilers in 1925. After coal was largely abandoned for fuel oil, battleships like the USS Iowa (BB-61) had m
