WICKARD NAMED FOOD ADMINISTRATOR; U.S. AND 7 ALLIES RAID EUROPE IN BIGGEST DAYLIGHT ATTACK (12/7/42)

Microfilm-New York Times archives, Monterey Public Library | 12/7/42 | John MacCormac, David Anderson, James MacDonald

[colorado tanker]

Project Habakkuk

This is one of the weirder stories out of WWII. The problem was the Mid-Atlantic Gap, the area beyond the reach of land based ASW aircraft. Churchill proposed a floating island of ice to serve as an unsinkable aircraft carrier in the gap. The engineering problem was the phenomenon of flow - even ice flows very slowly. A fellow named Pyke came up with the idea of mixing ice with wood pulp to solve the flow problem. It was called Pykrete. The proposal was to make a giant aircraft carrier, capable of serving land based bombers, out of pykrete. A prototype was actually made in a lake in the Canadian Rockies.

Ultimately, the project was abandoned because it would be very expensive and consume a large volume of resources. More important, the Allies gained access to bases in the Azores and were producing enough escort carriers to patrol the Gap.

It would have been ginormous:

[etabeta]

Thank you for that information.

[CougarGA7]

Hard times call for hard drink. Besides, its still done today, its just more subtle.