Editing Project Habakkuk (section)

== End of project ==
By the time of the 1943 [[Quebec Conference, 1943|Quebec Conference]] the Habakkuk project had won the support of both Churchill and Mountbatten,<ref>Churchill mentioned the Habakkuk project in his history of the Second World War series (Vol 5, p. 76)</ref> and was assigned to the [[National Research Council of Canada]] because of the cold Canadian winters and Canadians' prior familiarity with ice physics. The small prototype built in 1944 on Patricia Lake near Jasper, Alberta, confirmed the researchers' forecast that the full-size vessel would cost more money and machinery than a whole fleet of conventional aircraft carriers. (The sunken remains of the metal parts of the boat remain there to this day.)<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/operation-habbakuk-at-patricia-lake | title=Operation Habbakuk at Patricia Lake }}</ref> NRC President [[Jack Mackenzie|C. J. Mackenzie]] later said British promoters of Habakkuk were so intimidated by Prime Minister Churchill that they kept this information from him until Mackenzie's next visit to Britain.<ref>Susan B.M. Langley, 'Project Habbakuk:  World War II Prototype Vessel' in "Scientia Canadensis" #31 (1986).</ref> 

Mountbatten later listed several reasons why the special boat's construction would be expensive and not needed:{{citation needed|date=October 2012}}
* Demand for steel for other purposes was too great.
* Permission had been received from [[Portugal in World War II|Portugal]] to use airfields in the [[Azores]], which facilitated the hunting of U-boats in the Atlantic
* The introduction of long-range fuel tanks allowed British-based aircraft extra patrol time over the Atlantic
* The numbers of [[escort carrier]]s were being increased.
In addition, Mountbatten himself withdrew from the project.

The final meeting of the Habakkuk board took place in December 1943. It was officially concluded that "The large Habbakuk II made of pykrete has been found to be impractical because of the enormous production resources required and technical difficulties involved."

The use of ice had actually been falling out of favour before that, and other ideas for "[[floating islands]]" had been considered, such as welding [[Liberty ship|Liberty Ships]] or [[landing craft]] together (''Project TENTACLE'').<ref name="National Archives 2">{{cite web |url=http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/displaycataloguedetails.asp?CATLN=6&CATID=531490&SearchInit=4&CATREF=PREM+3/216/4 |title=Adm. Noble's reports on Habakkuk/Tentacle |website=www.nationalarchives.gov.uk |access-date=18 March 2018}}</ref> It took three hot summers to completely melt the prototype constructed in Canada.

Perutz wrote that he stayed in [[Washington D.C.]] while [[U.S. Navy]] engineers evaluated the viability of Habakkuk. He concluded: "The U.S. Navy finally decided that Habakkuk was a false prophet. One reason was [that] the enormous amount of steel needed for the refrigeration plant that was to freeze the pykrete was greater than that needed to build the entire carrier of steel, but the crucial argument was that the rapidly increasing range of land-based aircraft rendered floating islands unnecessary."<ref>{{cite book |last=Perutz |first=Max |author-link=Max Perutz |title=''I Wish I Made You Angry Earlier'' |page=94 |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2002 |edition=paperback |isbn=0-19-859027-X}}</ref>