During the Cold War both the Americans and Soviets set up secret facilities all over the world in order to give them an advantage over the other side. One of the most ambitious was Operation Iceworm (or Project Iceworm), an American attempt to set-up a major base in frozen Greenland with many nuclear missiles that could reach the USSR. K.R.T Quirion explains.
The PM-2A nuclear power plant. From 1960 until 1963, the electricity was provided by this portable nuclear reactor, known as PM-2A.
In 1959, Army surveyors began preparing for a new U.S. military station to be built on the Greenland icecap. It would come to be called Camp Century. The official statement claimed that it would be an experiment in constructing military facilities on the icecap. The Army would test various construction techniques under Arctic conditions, explore practical problems with a semi-mobile nuclear reactor, and support scientific experiments.
Publicly, Camp Century claimed to show how ordinary Americans could live and work in a remote location, and a veritable first-step in determining whether a viable moon colony could ever be maintained. Tunneling began in 1959 and went on for three years. Eventually, the underground facility would house sleeping quarters, laboratories, offices, a barbershop, laundry, library, and warm showers for 225 soldiers. The entire base was powered by a nuclear reactor that had been shipped in to provide electricity.[1]
Despite the public claim that Camp Century was nothing more than a “nuclear-powered Arctic research center,” the truth was more reminiscent of a James Bond film.[2]In 1997 the Danish Institute of International Affairs published a report titled Grønland under den kolde krig(Greenland during the Cold War), in which the contents of a newly declassified U.S. document were discussed.[3] This report outlined the existence of a top-secret plan by the U.S. Army to construct a massive nuclear missile facility under the Greenland Icecap. During the early 1960s, the Danish government had no idea that this strategic base was being constructed underneath their own sovereign soil. Plans for this base were kept secret from the Danes because at the time the Danish government supported the popular “no to nuclear weapons in Denmark” movement.[4] But, to those in the know, Camp Century was the home of “Operation Iceworm.”
Nuclear Facility Plans
In the early years of the Cold War, NATO relied almost entirely on the U.S. strategic nuclear arsenal to deter Warsaw Pact aggression. By the mid-1950s, the U.S. was struggling to meet the ever-escalating demands of its global war against the Soviet Union. NATO allies were demanding that the U.S. deploy nuclear forces in sufficient number and range to credibly deter a Soviet attack. In a 1960 report entitled the Strategic Value of the Greenland Icecap, the U.S. Army Engineer Studies Center described a plan to deploy 600 Mid-Range Ballistic Missiles (MRBMs) across 52,000 square miles of Greenland’s frozen ice sheet.[5]
The new two-stage “Iceman” missiles that army planners envisioned for “Operation Iceworm” had a range of 3,300 nautical miles. From its strategic location within the Arctic Circle, Camp Century and its retinue could cover 80% of all relevant Soviet targets.[6]Furthermore, because of its design and harsh climate, the base would be nearly invisible and penetrable only by ground forces or the most massive of thermonuclear assaults. Finally, as a safeguard, the missiles would be moved every few hours via a subterranean railway among 2,100 different launch sites and controlled by sixty launch control centers (LCCs) embedded in hardened bunkers.[7]
Accommodating the “Iceman” missiles and the 11,000-strong defense and support team needed to maintain them would require a massive expansion of Camp Century’s livable facilities. The Army calculated the price tag of “Operation Iceworm” as around $2.37 billion. Construction of the strategic facilities began as soon as tunneling started in 1959.
Challenges
Despite initial success, the lynch pin of the entire facility, the subterranean railway that would transport the “Iceman” missiles, was found to be infeasible. After construction began it was found that the tunnel walls, made only of ice and snow, were in continual flux due to the natural shifting of the icecap. This constant movement caused the tunnels and trenches to narrow as their walls deformed, bulged, and settled. In some instances the tunnels collapsed entirely. These complications created a danger for Camp Century’s nuclear arsenal and made transportation on the missile train impossible.[8]Even the nuclear reactor, which provided electricity to the Camp, was in constant danger from the ice shifting. By the summer of 1962 the ceiling of the reactor room had dropped five feet and had to be lifted to avoid fatal contact with the reactor. Collapsing continued and the Army was forced to deactivate and remove the reaction chamber of the nuclear generator.[9]
Due to these complications, and a fierce inter-service rivalry for control of strategic nuclear assets, “Operation Iceworm” was abandoned in 1963 having never received any of its nuclear ordnance. Camp Century remained operational for a few more years as a summer research facility until it too was decommissioned in 1967. When the Army final left, minimal deconstruction and removal was conducted. Along with the facilities and transportation infrastructure, 200,000 liters of diesel fuel as well as other chemical, biological, and radiological wastes were left under the ice. [10]The Army abandoned Camp Century hoping that the remaining memory of “Operation Iceworm” would be “preserved for eternity” under the perpetual snowfall of the Greenland Icecap.[11]
Let us know what you think of Operation Iceworm below.
Now, you can read K.R.T Quirion’s recently published series on telegraphy in the US Civil War here.
[1]Petersen, Nikolaj, “The Iceman That Never Came,” Scandinavian Journal of History 33, No. 1 (2008): 75–98, https://doi.org/10.1080/03468750701449554, 78.
[2]Ibid., 75.
[3]Niiler, Eric, “When the Pentagon Dug Secret Cold War Ice Tunnels to Hide Nukes,” History.com, A&E Television Networks, March 27, 2019, https://www.history.com/news/project-iceworm-cold-war-nuclear-weapons-greenland.
[4]Nielsen, Kristian Hvidtfelt, and Henry Nielsen, Aarhus University, Centre for Science Studies, and Aarhus University, “How the US Built a Mysterious Military Camp under the Greenland Ice Sheet,” SNORDIC-FRONT, December 19, 2017. https://sciencenordic.com/denmark-forskerzonen-history/how-the-us-built-a-mysterious-military-camp-under-the-greenland-ice-sheet/1451993.
[5]Petersen, “The Iceman That Never Came,” 79.
[6]Ibid.
[7]Weiss, Erick D., “Cold War Under The Ice: The Army’s Bid for a Long-Range Nuclear Role, 1959-1963,” Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 3, No. 3, (Fall, 2001): 31-58, doi:10.1162/152039701750419501, 41.
[8]Niiler, “When the Pentagon Dug Secret Cold War Ice Tunnels to Hide Nukes.”
[9]Colgan, William, Horst Machguth, Mike Macferrin, Jeff D. Colgan, Dirk Can As, and Joseph A. Macgregor, “The Abandoned Ice Sheet Base at Camp Century, Greenland, in a Warming Climate,” Geophysical Research Letters
43, No. 15 (April 2016): 8091-96, https://doi.org/10.1002/2016g1069688, 8091.
[10]Ibid., 8092.
[11]Ibid., 8091.
