You have to admire human ingenuity. When there’s a will, there’s a way, and German pilots during WWII proved that point exceedingly well during their unwelcome time in North Africa. What exactly did they do? The WWII German pilots figured out how to cool down Coca Cola bottles in the hot and harsh environment of North Africa.
You’d be hard pressed to argue that there’s hardly anything as refreshing on a hot day than a nice cold drink. But there are times where it’s just not convenient or possible. Such circumstances can be during times of conflict, where life’s luxuries take a back seat to the task at hand. Human ingenuity however, can overcome some barriers to life’s little luxuries. This was the case during WWII when German pilots placed Coca-Cola bottles under the wings of their planes to cool them down.
Obviously this solution wouldn’t be necessary in Europe that often, but in North Africa, where the temperatures can soar to world record setting temperatures, it was a rather useful idea. But simply placing bottles on the underside of wings wouldn’t necessarily cool it down. So they had to rely on a little science to assist them in the process of inventive refrigeration.
What the German pilots did was wrap the Coca-Cola bottles in a wet cloth and then placed them under the wing. As you probably already know, when wind hits a wet object evaporation occurs. When water evaporates it also cools. Essentially, the wind evaporated the moisture from the cloth, which cooled the beverage. Once they landed they had a cool refreshing drink awaiting them.
But there was one major failing of this plan. If they did not survive the mission, they didn’t get to enjoy a cool and refreshing Coca Cola. Oh well, them’s the breaks. Shouldn’t have been there anyway.
