10 Weirdest WWII Stories You Probably Haven't Heard

A one-mile long aircraft carrier made of ice might sound like the rantings of a mad scientist, but you'd be surprised how close this came to being a real thing. Winston Churchill famously said, "The only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril." The thing that saved the British from Nazi occupation was also their Achilles heel: being an island. Being separated from mainland Europe meant that all the supplies and material needed to survive had to brought in by ship. And Germany had U-boats, lots of U-boats!

The vastness of the Atlantic Ocean made the convoys an easy target for U-boat wolfpacks, as aerial protection was not available. Clearly, something needed to be done. Technically the ship wasn't going to be constructed out of ice, but a new substance called Pykrete. Named after its inventor, Geoffrey Pyke, it was a mixture of ice and wood pulp and the combination made something that was infinitely stronger (the ship would have been bomb and torpedo proof) and dramatically slowed down the melting process. These characteristics made Pykrete an absolute shoe-in for the job.

Ultimately, the concept of an ice-craft carrier would never become a reality. As the Battle of the Atlantic raged on, the Allies developed tactics to combat the U-boat menace. Whereas in the past there was no protection for ships in 'The Atlantic Gap', planes like the B-24 Liberator were able to hunt and destroy U-boats. The hunter had become the hunted and Karl Donitz, commander of the U-boat fleet, withdrew the fleet.

Quite a shame really: a one-mile long aircraft carrier made of reinforced ice and weighing two million tons, would have been quite the sight.