Posters Artwork Documents

Project Habakkuk

'Ingenious' projects were no monopoly of German minds :) Project Habbakuk was the name of an ingenious project thought up by Geoffrey Pyke. He envisaged that by taking a large iceberg of ice floe, levelling off the top, and hollowing out the inside, it could be used as a landing platform for aircraft. At the time, the Allies were losing huge numbers of supply ships to German U-boats in the Atlantic. Aircraft were extremely adept at hunting and destroying surfaced U-boats, but they lacked the range to cover the entire Atlantic. Providing a landing platform in the middle of the ocean would therefore give the U-boats nowhere to hide. However, ice proved unsuitable as it split easily, and icebergs themselves are prone to rolling over. Fortunately, two scientists in New York soon discovered that by freezing water with wood pulp, they could create a strong but buoyant substance they christened pykrete. The final design called for a giant carrier 600m (2000ft) long, built out of pykrete, fitted with an extensive cooling system to prevent the pykrete melting, displacing 2.2 million tons, and carrying 150 planes. Unfortunately, research was halted in early 1944 for a number of reasons: the growing numbers and effectiveness of conventional carriers, the huge cost ($100 million) involved, and the technical difficulties of building and refrigerating such a massive structure.