Editing Project Habakkuk (section)

== Shooting incident ==
According to some accounts, at the [[Quebec Conference, 1943|Quebec Conference in 1943]] [[Lord Louis Mountbatten]] brought a block of [[pykrete]] along to demonstrate its potential to the admirals and generals who accompanied [[Winston Churchill]] and [[Franklin Delano Roosevelt|Franklin D. Roosevelt]]. Mountbatten entered the 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.

[[Alan Brooke, 1st Viscount Alanbrooke|Sir Alan Brooke]]'s diaries support this account,<ref>{{Citation |last=Alanbrooke |first=Field Marshal Lord | editor1-first = Alex | editor1-last = Danchev | editor2-first = Daniel | editor2-last = Todman |title=''War Diaries 1939–1945'' |publisher=Phoenix Press |year=2001 |isbn=1-84212-526-5 |at=entry for 19 August 1943}}.</ref> telling how Mountbatten brought two blocks, one of ice and one of pykrete.  After first shooting at the ice, with a warning to beware of splinters, Mountbatten said "I shall fire at the block on the right to show you the difference". Brooke reported that "the bullet rebounded out of the block and buzzed round our legs like an angry bee".

[[Max Perutz]] gave an account of a similar incident in his book ''I Wish I Made You Angry Earlier''. A demonstration of pykrete was given at [[Combined Operations Headquarters]] (COHQ) by a naval officer, [[Lieutenant Commander]] [[Douglas Adshead-Grant]], who was provided by Perutz with rods of ice and pykrete packed with dry ice in thermos flasks and large blocks of ice and pykrete. Grant demonstrated the comparative strength of ice and pykrete by firing bullets into both blocks: the ice shattered, but the bullet rebounded from the pykrete and hit the [[Chief of the General Staff (United Kingdom)|Chief of Imperial General Staff]] Sir Alan Brooke in the shoulder.<ref name=perutzea>{{cite book |last=Perutz |first=Max |author-link=Max Perutz |title=''I Wish I Made You Angry Earlier'' |page=84 |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2002 |edition=paperback |isbn=0-19-859027-X}}</ref>