At the height of the Cold War,
the United States and the Soviet Union were in the midst of an arms race to develop advanced
and experimental weaponry. An emphasis was placed on missile-mounted nuclear devices.
A key to this strategy was ensuring that these missiles had an adequate range to
strike their targets. Finding strategically optimal locations would be essential,
and creating bases that could hide nuclear weapons became a priority. During that period,
both countries erected secret military facilities across the globe to get closer to their enemy.
Project Iceworm was a U.S. codename for constructing
one of those covert military bases in Thule, Greenland.
It was one of many Cold War-era classified operations that remained a secret until recently.
The top-secret nuclear missile launch site was constructed in the middle of a frozen wasteland.
It was named Camp Century, and it began operating in 1960. However, unstable ice conditions soon
began to crush everything built underground… including the nuclear reactor that powered it...
Project Iceworm
In 1950, an agreement between the United States and the Kingdom of
Denmark allowed the construction of a military station in Greenland.
It was named Thule Air Base. This territory was part of a series of small outposts in the Arctic,
where radars were installed to detect enemy presence in the region.
Work on Thule Air Base commenced in 1951 under the codename Blue Jay. It was ready to operate only
60 days after construction began, and it would eventually house nearly 10,000 military personnel.
As part of the Distant Early Warning line of defense, the base maintained some of the 63 radars
strategically placed across a 3,000-mile extension that ran from Alaska to Baffin Island in Canada.
The purpose of this radar wall was to provide
coverage for the detection of Soviet missiles or aircraft.
While Thule’s existence was readily visible, 150-miles from this location, the construction
of a secret site called Camp Century began. In 1960, it was announced publicly that the camp
would be used for scientific research. A short documentary film was released in the following
months showing the construction techniques used to build the camp at such punishing temperatures.
And, indeed, the conditions were extreme. It was common to have temperatures at night
close to -70°F degrees, with wind, ice, and snow blowing through the air at 125 miles per hour.
Special contingencies had to be taken to secure the future of the facility.
Captain Thomas Evans, one of the U.S. Army officers in charge of selecting
the construction site, spoke about the less than ideal conditions at Camp Century, saying (QUOTE):
“We needed a flat surface, a level with less than one degree of slope. This would
minimize construction problems by enabling us to keep all of our tunnels on the same level.”
This meant that the Army would have to go underground.
And so, Project Iceworm began. It was publicly described as
an ice-capped military outpost that would house more than 200 residents
in what would become an entire city carved 200 feet into the ice.
Throughout construction, the U.S. hid the facility’s real purpose, as it was actually
to serve as a nuclear launch site. Not only did they want to keep it a secret from the Soviets,
but the U.S. also knew the Danish opposed housing atomic weapons on their territory.
A system of tunnels extending more than 2,500 miles would be used to transport and house
more than 550 specially-modified Minuteman missiles that were ready to be launched
at Russia if needed. They were nicknamed “Icemen.”
Four-hundred-sixty-thousand tons of material was
transported from the United States via Thule Air Base to begin construction.
Hundreds of military personnel were sent from Thule to the location of Camp Century.
Military engineers used innovative Arctic building techniques to complete the initial work of the
tunnels. Using modified tractors, they cut deep trenches that went nearly 30 feet into the ice.
Once the voids were cleared and aligned with the others,
the trenches were covered with steel semi cylinders
and topped again with snow and ice to freeze them firmly into place, effectively hiding them.
A total of 21 trenches were built and covered with the arched ice roofs.
Under these, prefabricated buildings were placed. Although most of the tunnels were simply dug into
the ice (hence the name Iceworm), other surface quarters were built using wood and steel.
The strange underground colony had all the amenities of a small city.
In addition to the missile silos and communication rooms that controlled them,
the tunnels connected each other to a chapel, theatre, hospital,
offices, library, apartments, and other essential establishments for social necessities.
The ice colonists even had freshwater that they were able to obtain from a
well-developed system of pipes and drainage, which supplied water by melting glaciers.
Calculations indicated that transporting diesel across the sea, land, or through the air in order
to keep the base running would be problematic. Constant loss of communication and extreme weather
conditions made it difficult and expensive to secure a supply of fuel for the generators.
As a solution to the problem, the Army decided that a portable nuclear reactor should be
installed to supply Camp Century’s electrical needs. The world’s first portable reactor,
the PM-2, was successfully installed at the base after being shipped over in pieces
weighing 400-tons in total. It could generate up to 2 megawatts of power.
This interconnected facility was built to operate year-round.
It was estimated that Camp Century would last 10 years without any additional modifications.
Collapse
The first tests conducted before the construction of Camp Century showed that the ice sheet was
rigid enough for tunneling. However, a later study from 1962 indicated that the ice sheet
was moving faster than expected. The ice sheet was not as stable as initially thought.
It appeared that the ice was far more elastic, which would cost more for the tunnels’ ongoing
maintenance. Otherwise, the entire facility would be at risk of collapse and being crushed.
As months passed, the slow, imperfect, and constant ice sheet movements caused the tunnels
and walls to narrow and deform. Eerie sounds and cracking noises haunted the staff and soldiers.
Some ceilings even began to collapse alongside the tracks that were supposed
to carry the missile train. The reactor room dropped 5 feet from its original position.
Eventually, during a reactor shutdown for maintenance in July of 1963,
the Army decided to operate the camp only during the summer. The reactor was not reactivated
again. When operations were resumed in 1964, a diesel power plant was used. The risk of a
nuclear catastrophe was deemed too great, and the underground facility’s overall state had
deteriorated so much that it was considered unsuitable for any further development.
A massive future expansion of Camp Century was canceled. An additional 52,000-square-miles of
tunnels were scrapped, and the deployment of the new Iceman missile was put on hold.
If things had gone differently, it would have made Project Iceworm
the world’s largest nuclear launch site, roughly the size of the State of Indiana.
In 1967, while the Vietnam War raged on and funds began to be cut, Camp Century was abandoned.
The facility was nearly left intact as the Army gave up the site.
Besides the structural components, more than 9,000 tons of waste and 50,000 gallons of toxic
materials, such as radioactive water and diesel, were left to be buried under the frozen wasteland.
Engineers believed that the entire base would be eaten by the ice,
taking it deeper underground as time passed on, left alone to be buried in utter secrecy.
However, they did not know that one day, global warming would unearth the top-secret facility.
Global Warming
In 1997, Denmark conducted a scientific visit to Camp Century.
By then, The Danish government had declassified documents regarding
what it knew about the military activities of the United States Army during the 60s.
The title of one of these documents was “Strategic Value of the Greenland Ice Cap.”
It contained valuable information about the objectives the U.S. had pursued
by establishing the Thule Air Base and Camp Century facilities.
Government officials were astonished when they found out that the schematics of Camp Century
were very different from those that were publicly shown to people in
the 60s when the supposed scientific research center began construction.
Camp Century was not what they had thought. Eventually, they discovered that Camp Century
was a top-secret nuclear launch site, built without any consent from the Danish Government.
The American military thought that the ice would bury the facility’s secrets,
but nature thought otherwise. With the ice loss fueled by global warming,
the once-secret base rose from the depths of the frozen wasteland almost five decades later.
A study conducted in 2016 showed that the ice sheet
covering Camp Century would begin melting by 2090.
If the weather continues to worsen every year, the increased warmth may accelerate the effect.
When Camp Century is finally exposed, the remaining chemical and radioactive waste
left by the U.S. Army is expected to cause severe damage to the surrounding ecosystem.
It may even creep across the coast and eventually reach the ocean.
Some scientists suggest that the pollution may produce effects worse than those caused
by the constant bombing and use of chemical agents in the Vietnam war.
The political context of this climatic situation remains complex.
Although the Kingdom of Denmark allowed the U.S. to build the two bases, it is not entirely clear
if the Government knew what the Americans were up to when the construction of Camp Century began.
With Greenland acquiring its sovereignty from Denmark at the turn of the past century,
it is not clear who is responsible for cleaning the future problems of
all the harmful materials that remain hidden in Camp Century.
For the time being, Project Iceworm, a failed invention of the Cold War and the most ambitious
nuclear launch site in the history of the United States, will remain reclaimed by nature and
the frozen wastelands of an environment that turns warmer as every year passes.