Code Name Habbakuk : A Secret Ship Made of Ice

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.

L.D. (Dyan) Cross is an Ottawa writer and member of the Professional Writers Association of Canada, the Canadian Authors Association, and the Creative Non-Fiction Collective. Her business and lifestyle articles have appeared in the Globe and Mail and in magazines such as Weddingbells, Home Business Report, Legion Magazine, Profit Magazine, enRoute, and This Country Canada. Her creative non-fiction has been recognized by the International Association of Business Communicators, the EXCEL Awards for features and editorial writing, and the National Mature Media Awards. In 2011, she received the Ontario Historical Award for her book The Underground Railroad: The Long Journey to Freedom in Canada.