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The
plan was to construct an 11 meter long, 1000 ton (1:50) model for
testing.
The
walls and floors were made of wood. Ice was added around a refrigeration
system. This system circulated cold air to help freeze the ice blocks
together.
Henry
Martens, a CO from Coaldale, Alberta, explains his part in the project.
“The
next day, we were initiated into our job: constructing a building
floating in the icy waters of beautiful Lake Patricia, about
15 miles from camp. The 14-inch
outside walls of the building were to be constructed of lightweight
aggregate mixed with an abundance of tar. The inside of the building
was to be compactly filled with ice
sawn from the frozen lake. Machinery in its core was to keep
the ice in a frozen state and floating on the lake in summertime.
Our job was to carry tar up the gangplank
in a wheelbarrow and dump it into the wall frame." [ASP,
124]
When the COs got to the site location they started to build the
frame out of wood. The frame was 30 feet wide, 60 feet long
and 20 feet high.
Ice was cut from the lake for the huge ice ship.
The floor was built, tar was mixed with wood chips to fit the ice
pieces together.
The COs were divided into crews, each working on different parts
of the project. A professional pipe fitter was hired to install
the refrigeration pipes to keep the ice frozen. Once completed
the ship was pushed into a shed or building.
Even
though no one was completely sure about the purpose of the project,
rumours started that the project was an aircraft carrier. The Mennonite
COs asked to be removed from the project, but their request was
denied. They didn't understand that they were only building a model
of an aircraft carrier, not a real ship, so they wondered why anyone
would build a ship 800 kilometres from the nearest ocean. The COs
were confused about the project. Some of them didn't find out about
the real purpose of their work until long after the war.
Henry
Martens writes:
“The
purpose for constructing this floating solid ice building mystified
us COs and made no sense. Only after the war did we discover that
we had been engaged in a highly secret war effort, for which we
might have refused to render service for reasons of conscience
if we had been told. It was a trial floating ice pad which, if
built large enough, could have served as a landing strip for aircraft
somewhere in the ocean.” [ASP, 124]
David Goerzen only found out long after his service what he was
helping to build.
Abe
Dick, for example, only found out when a historian contacted him
to ask him about his CO experiences. Only then did he learn that
his pacifist principles had been violated in the name of science.
Minister John
Wiebe visited the camp and described what the men were doing,
but he had no idea that what they were doing was contributing to
a weapon of war. (Read an English
translation of the letter.)
Some evidence claims that workers wrote in protest that they were
being used to build a weapon of war. David Goerzen does not
recall this.
The
scientists behind the project were confident that it would work.
The tests went well enough that the War Office approved a $75 million
budget for the project. But then someone pointed out that it made
more sense to use the time, money, and labour on a real aircraft
carrier, instead of on a concept that wasn't completely proven.
After
the government cancelled the project, the wood and metal frame of
the giant ice ship was allowed to sink to the bottom of Lake Patricia,
where it remains to this day.
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