As regards the alcohol intake, in those days nobody drank water: it was likely to be teeming with nasty things like amoebas (the dysentery kind). Even schoolchildren drank small beer -- not very strong, but reasonably antiseptic. And a pint of rum could make even the greenest of several-years-in-the-cask water potable!

And of course, everyone drank too much if they could, anyway.

When did the RN stop the rum ration? Early fifties? The army had a rum ration in the First World War, too: If the sergeant steals your rum/Never mind!.

Steve