Admiral Ernest J. King, USN, Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet and Chief of Naval

Operations, 1944 photo. King was glad to

have survived the demonstration shooting at the pykrete block at the Quebec

conference. He was intolerant and suspicious of all things British, especially the

Royal Navy. The Quebeck incident did

not improve his opinion.

Photo: U.S. Navy Photograph

Conceptual design of the aircraft carrier HMS Habbakuk. The ship was constructed from

iceberg and covered with a 12 metre thick layer of pykrete. The bergship was to have a high

resistance to enemy fire as well as to the temperature of sea water. A 1/50th scale model of

her was built in Canada in 1944.

Foto: Wikimedia Commons

Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten

sitting at his desk, 1943. He was a great supporter of the construction of HMS

Habbakuk and the use of pykrete. At the

Quebec Conference in 1943 Lord Mountbatten brought a block of pykrete along

to demonstrate its potential to the admirals and generals who accompanied

Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Mountbatten entered the HMS Habbakuk project meeting with two blocks

and placed them on the ground. One was

a normal ice block and the other was pykrete. He then drew his service pistol and

shot at the first block. It shattered and

splintered. Next he fired at the pykrete to

give an idea of the resistance of that kind

of ice to projectiles. The bullet ricocheted

off the block, grazing the trouser leg of

Admiral Ernest King, and ended up in the

wall.

Photo: IWM

INFO Eduard - January 2022

to develop and manufacture these vessels

and the antigravity drive here in seclusion.“

„Gentlemen, that changes the situation! It looked like a couple of bases of some German

troops, but what you‘re saying is a major global threat!“

„We didn‘t have enough information Mr.

President, it‘s only since the last few weeks

that we‘ve gotten images that changed our

minds. „

„And the British know about this? They‘re

sending a fleet south. Byrnes, what do you

know at the Foreign Office?“

„Currently, Mr. President, Churchill thinks Hitler may have an atomic bomb there. That‘s

why he‘s so nervous. He hasn‘t heard of the

space program.“

„That‘ll give Winston a heart attack! And they

have a bomb?“

„We don‘t know, we found some objects with

radioactivity in Germany, but we‘re not sure.“

Truman looked around. The atmosphere in

the room was so thick it could have been cut.

Finally, he looked at Nimitz.

„Who did you send south?“

„The aircraft carrier USS Franklin D. Roosevelt,

commanded by Rear Admiral Apollo Soucek.

Until now, we assumed we‘d make a few tar-

geted raids with the British and be done with

it.“

The President shook his head in disbelief.

„What are the British sending there?“

„Ten of their regular carriers, each with about

fifty aircraft. But they are counting on some

of them being out of commission because

of the climate. In addition, they have sent

three huge bergships made of icebergs. They

are called HMS Habbakuk, HMS Nahum and

HMS Zephaniah, each with two hundred aircraft on board, including Tempests and Meteors.“

„Gentlemen, send in everything we have available in the Pacific, deploy jet fighters as well. „

Aircraft carrier HMS Habbakuk, north

of the Antarctic coast

near the zero meridian,

October 1946

The intelligence officer walked into the briefing room and headed straight to the front

between the rows of seats where the pilots

were sitting. As he passed them, the conver-

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