PROJECT HABAKKUK

The iceberg aircraft carrier

MADE BY: GERMANY DATE: EARLY 1942

MADE BY: BRITAIN DATE: 1943

In an attempt to remedy the issue of limited steel and aluminium supplies with which to build new ships, Geoffrey Pyke pitched a rather innovative idea: aircraft carriers made from ice. His proposal was to use an iceberg – whether naturally forming or manufactured – flatten it and hollow it out to use it as a means for aircraft to be transported and deployed on the ocean. Pyke began work with Austrian biologist Max Perutz to devise a way to use a glacier to build a ship, although they found that ice would crack under its own weight for the sizes they would need. The discovery of pykrete, a mixture of wood pulp and ice, turned a fanciful notion into something plausible, with a prototype built in Patricia Lake, Alberta, Canada. The pykrete was buoyant and very strong, but still needed insulation and cooling. To keep the ice from melting, a refrigeration system was needed to keep it running, although the prototype took three summers to melt in Patricia Lake.