Code Name Habbakuk: A Secret Ship Made of Ice

by L.D. Cross

In late 1942, Britain was desperate to win the ongoing Battle of the Atlantic. German U-boats had sunk hundreds of Allied ships containing millions of tons of cargo that was needed to continue the war effort. Prime Minister Churchill had to find a solution to the carnage or the Nazis would be victorious. With the support of Churchill and Lord Louis Mountbatten, eccentric inventor and amateur spy Geoffrey Pyke proposed a dramatic project to build invincible ships of ice—massive, unsinkable aircraft carriers that would roam the mid-Atlantic servicing fighter planes and bombers on missions to protect shipping from predatory U-boat wolf packs.


This is the fascinating story of the rise and fall of Project Habbakuk and how an outlandish inventor, the British Navy, the National Research Council of Canada and a workforce of conscientious objectors tested the bizarre concept in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, far from the theatre of war.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

140 pages, Paperback

First published April 15, 2012

Reviews

[Peter Aronson · Rating 3 out of 5]

An OK account of an odd side-note of WWII; it reads rather like a book report by an uninterested but competent student -- lots of facts, well laid out, but no real analysis and little context.

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Second World War. Kooky idea to build warships out of ice. Churchill, Louis Mountbatten. Canadian reservations. Experiment at Patricia Lake above Jasper, Alberta. Conscientious objectors outraged to discover they are working on a war experiment.

I need to track down more information on Clarence Decatur (C.D.) Howe's amazing survival crossing the Atlantic.

[Christina Lanouette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written to about the elementary to middle school level, but a good synopsis of Habbakuk. Presents a lot of interesting theories or problems with the project but, unfortunately, doesn’t delve into the science behind them.

[Tyson Ng · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was quite detailed with tons of information on the planning and designing phase of the 'ice ship' and it also included photographs of the project being built. However the author could have added more clarity into the book because I couldn't understand some of the book.

[Kevin · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting side note to WWII history but not much meat unfortunately. Barely more than a Wikipedia entry, it is nevertheless an easily consumable tale of novel thinking, military overreach causing feature creep and the triumph of common sense in the Canadian Rockies.

[Bill Leach · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book about the initiative to build a large ship out of ice during World War 2. With the heavy shipping losses during the early years of the war, even extreme ideas were entertained for new weapons. An ice ship looked as it might be little affected by torpedoes and, given a hull refrigeration system, would be self healing. The chief proponent was Geoffrey Pyke, a man with many ideas but short on implementation detail.

The key to the idea was ice containing 14 percent wood pulp which overcame the brittleness of pure ice. Originally called piccolite or pikolite, it eventually assumed Pyke's name as pykrete. Demonstrations of it's resistance to projectile impact and to melting were dramatic.

Some testing of pykcrete beams occurred on Lake Louise in early 1943. Due to security concerns, the work was moved to Lake Patrica where a prototype was built by Conscientious Objectors.

While initial thoughts were that an ice ship would be low cost as ice is "free", more detailed costing revealed much higher costs. Enough wood pulp would be needed that supply was a problem. Moreover by mid 1943 the Pacific War was going better due to improvements in intelligence, long range air support, radar and sonar. Initially it was thought that a ship could be built in a year, but it became clear that it would take years. With the attractions of low cost and early implementation gone, the concept dropped out of favor.

[Richard Jr. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A secret Lake in Canada! A secret plan to defeat the U-boat domination of the central Atlantic Ocean gives rise to an amazing story! The documentation, held secret by the British for 35 years after the war reveal and eccentric genius, a half cocked plan to make an aircraft carrier of ice, and the selling of the idea to Churchill in a crazy bathtub demonstration by Lord Mountbatten. A mixture known as pykrete becomes the secrete to the prevention of melting and fracturing solid ice in order to stop bullets, torpedoes and bombs. Human ingenuity and the ability to think outside the box becomes an asset in wartime and this allows Geoffrey Pike to rise to enter the annals of history with his idea that sparked Britain and Canada to embark on a voyage of scientific discovery that brings to light more knowledge about the properties of water in the form of ice than had been known up to that point in time. A quick read and well worth it for those of us who have journeyed or plan to journey to Lake Louise in Canada. A side trip to nearby Lake Patricia will allow you to reflect on the ideas of a forgotten man, reborn as a genius in this small history. Author L. D. Cross has written an excellent book for a WW2 secret project that completely blew away my mind!