CARRIER MADE OF ICE

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24814, 2 March 1946, Page 7

CARRIER MADE OF ICE

BATTLE OF ATLANTIC PLAN

RESISTANCE TQ BOMBS AND TORPEDOES

LONDON, March 1. The proposal of the British and American Governments to build a giant aircraft-carrier of ice to protect shipping convoys in the Atlantic and to pe used later ip the invasion of Europe, pas been revealed. While eXppriipenta were still going on in refrigerated laboratories in the United Kingdom, Canada, apd the United States, the Battle of the Atlantic was won and the project was dropped. Explosives have little effect op ice and ihe 40ft thick walls of the carrier would have withstood torpedoes and bombs. The carrier was to have been 3000 feet long, 200 feet in beam, and 300 feet deep, with a weight of 2,000,000 tons. It was to have a speed of seven knots. It would have carried 300 fighters and 200 bomh e f s » and the complement would have been 3500 men. The ice ship was suggested by the Director of Programmes at Combined Headquarters in 1942, and work was immediately begun by scientists. The project involved- the use of a new material, 86 per cent, ice and 14 per cent, wood pulp. The mixture would have been kept frozen by refrigeration.