Editing Project Habakkuk (section)

=== Initial concept ===
[[Geoffrey Pyke]] was an old friend of [[John Desmond Bernal|J. D. Bernal]] and had been recommended to [[Lord Louis Mountbatten]], Chief of [[Combined Operations Headquarters|Combined Operations]], by the cabinet minister [[Leopold Amery]]. Pyke worked at Combined Operations Headquarters (COHQ) alongside Bernal and was regarded as a genius by Mountbatten.<ref name=swann>{{cite book |last=Swann |first=Brenda |author2=Francis Aprahamian |title=''J.D. Bernal: A Life in Science and Politics'' |publisher=Verso |year=1999 |isbn=1-85984-854-0}}</ref>

Pyke conceived the idea of Habakkuk while he was in the United States organising the production of [[M29 Weasel]]s for [[Project Plough]], a scheme to assemble an elite unit for winter operations in Norway, Romania and the Italian Alps.<ref name="swann" /> He had been considering the problem of how to protect seaborne landings and Atlantic convoys out of reach of aircraft cover. The problem was that steel and aluminium were in short supply, and were required for other purposes. Pyke decided that the answer was ice, which could be manufactured for just 1% of the energy needed to make an equivalent mass of steel. He proposed that an iceberg, natural or artificial, be levelled to provide a runway and hollowed out to shelter aircraft.

From New York, Pyke sent the proposal via [[diplomatic bag]] to COHQ, with a label forbidding anyone apart from Mountbatten from opening the package. Mountbatten in turn passed Pyke's proposal on to [[Winston Churchill|Churchill]], who was enthusiastic about it.<ref name=perutz>{{cite book |last=Perutz |first=Max F. |author-link=Max Perutz |title=''I Wish I'd Made You Angry Earlier: Essays on Science, Scientists and Humanity'' |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=2002 |pages=86–87 |isbn=0-19-859027-X}}</ref>

Pyke was not the first to suggest a floating mid-ocean stopping point for aircraft, nor even the first to suggest that such a floating island could be made of ice. A German scientist, A. Gerke from Waldenburg, had proposed the idea and carried out some preliminary experiments on [[Lake Zurich]] in 1930.<ref>{{citation
 | date        = 27 February 2008
 | publication-date = October 1932
 | title       = Ice Island in Mid-Atlantic Proposed
 | journal     = [[Modern Mechanix]]
 | issn        = 0025-6587
 | format      = Weblog
 | url         = http://blog.modernmechanix.com/ice-island-in-mid-atlantic-proposed/
 | access-date  = 18 February 2009}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |magazine=[[Popular Science]]|issn=0161-7370|date=September 1932|title=Ocean Airports of Artificial Ice |publisher=[[Bonnier Corporation]] |volume=121|number=3|location=[[Harlan, Iowa]], U.S. |page=33 |access-date=3 March 2019|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FygDAAAAMBAJ&q=Gerke+von+Waldenburg&pg=PA33 |format=Online at [[Google Books]]}}</ref> The idea was a recurring one: in 1940 an idea for an ice island was circulated around the [[British Admiralty|Admiralty]], but was treated as a joke by officers, including [[Nevil Shute]], who circulated a memorandum that gathered ever more caustic comments. The document was retrieved just before it reached the [[First Sea Lord]]'s inbox.<ref>Terrell, Edward, ''Admiralty Brief: The Story of Inventions that Contributed to Victory in the Battle of the Atlantic''. London: Harrap, 1958, p. 27</ref>