Winston Churchill wanted to build an aircraft carrier from... ice.
In 1942, the situation on the western front was disastrous for Great Britain. The German Kriegsmarines inflicted significant losses on the Royal Navy over and over again. Germany's powerful industrial base allowed the country to compensate for its losses in technology quickly, while Great Britain, having entered the war insufficiently prepared, considered any, even the most insane, ideas that could help it withstand the enemy.
One of these ideas was the option of creating an aircraft carrier, the building material for which would be ice - a temporary replacement for steel, the deficit of which reached its peak at that time. It is known that in 1942 this idea was discussed in the highest circles of the United Kingdom, including Winston Churchill himself, the acting prime minister at that time. The idea was known as “Project Habakkuk”.
Two approaches to creating an aircraft carrier from ice were developed at once. The first one was the cheapest – it consisted in cutting off the top of a large iceberg and re-equipping its surface for a runway. It was assumed that such ships, which are extremely cheap, would be used for short-term air operations against strategic enemy targets. Such an iceberg aircraft carrier also had to be equipped with defense systems, living quarters and an engine with rudders. The use of such a ship would be limited to a few months.
The second idea involved the creation of an aircraft carrier from scratch from pre-prepared ice blocks, between which refrigeration pipes would run, which would allow the ship not to melt and perform its functions for a long time.
After lengthy discussions, the British Department of Defense chose the second option as the most promising. Engineer Jeffrey Pike was appointed as the project manager. Experimentally, he found that if you mix water with cellulose, then after freezing, ice is obtained, which is superior in strength to ordinary and does not melt for a longer time. It was decided to name the new material, which, as it turned out later, had even better buoyancy, "pykret". American and Canadian allies were involved in the British project, and soon a test sample of the ship was built and launched in Canada in just two months, where tests began.
By 1943, the 18-meter ship was successfully tested in summer conditions, but the British Admiralty had several questions for the engineers: they asked to increase the strength of the deck for landing heavy bombers and equip the ship with additional protection against torpedoes from German submarines. For these improvements, it was necessary to strengthen the metal frame of the vessel, which resulted in additional money, and most importantly time costs.
The project no longer seemed like a panacea for German supremacy at sea, especially since by the end of 1943 the situation in the war turned in favor of the Allies. Britain has finally managed to overcome the shortage of steel and start producing cheap aircraft carriers. The unusual project was gradually forgotten and remained only in the form of drawings. The test sample of the ship soon melted, leaving a metal skeleton frame behind.
