Random Maniacal World War II Plans That Never Came to Fruition (15 items)

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  (#3) Project Habakkuk: A British Aircraft Carrier Made of Ice

  Geoffrey Pyke was a British inventor who conceived the idea of a floating island the size of an aircraft carrier, to be constructed in the Atlantic Ocean. Theoretically, this island, known as Project Habakkuk, would serve as a refueling location for airplanes stalking and sinking German U-Boats. Initially, tests on icebergs indicated they could be shattered by explosives and were unstable, occasionally rolling over, making them an implausible medium. Undeterred, Pyke invented a new substance made ice and wood pulp called "Pykrete," which could be manipulated like wood.   

  Lord Mountbatten and Winston Churchill became interested in the project, and a small, 60-by-30 foot block of pykrete was constructed in Lake Louise, Alberta. It weighed 1,000 tons. The estimated weight of a full scale version, as well as the cost, doomed the project, though its creators kept this information concealed to keep Habakkuk viable. The US Navy officially discontinued the project in December of 1943   
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  (#9) Project Pigeon: BF Skinner's Pigeon-Guided Missiles

  Feathered-brained Project Pigeon was the World War II brainchild of famed psychologist BF Skinner. The plan involved pigeons guiding a glider-like device equipped with an explosive warhead. One to three pigeons would be placed in front of a screen in the nose cone of the craft, and the screen would use lenses to focus on the intended target. If the glider began to drift off target, the pigeons would peck on the screen to activate sensors, which would re-calibrate the craft's flight path.  

  The National Defense Research Committee, a government agency comprised of technical industry leaders, provided $25,000 in research funding for Project Pigeon. However, the project was canceled in 1944 to focus on higher strategic priorities. However, the idea was revisited by the Navy in 1948 as Project Orcon, though was canceled again in 1953, when advancements in electronics rendered the need for a pigeon driven guidance system superfluous.    
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  (#6) Operation Ketsugo: The Japanese Defense of Japan, 1945

  Following the Japanese surrender at Okinawa, it was clear, even to the ardent militarists within the Japanese Imperial government, Japanese victory in the Pacific was impossible. Their goal in implementing Operation Ketsugo (Decisive) was to make invasion of the Japanese mainland so costly the Allies would negotiate an armistice instead of attempting to inflict an unconditional surrender.  

  In anticipation of invasion, the Japanese transferred troops from Manchuria, Korea, and northern Japan to areas they expected Allied forces to strike. They also mobilized the Patriotic Citizens Fighting Corps, which included all healthy men between the ages of 15 and 60 and women between the ages of 17 and 40.  In all, some 28 million people were conscripted to oppose invasion.  

  The Japanese also expected to launch all-out kamikaze attacks with their remaining 10,000 aircraft, submarines, and 2,400 Shin-yo (one man suicide motorboats). Despite formidable manpower, the Japanese were dangerously low on fuel and equipment. Many civilians would have been fighting with bamboo spears and even longbows.  The atomic attacks preempted Operation Ketsugo, and undoubtedly saved millions of Japanese lives.
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  (#15) Operation Long Jump: The Plot to Assassinate the Big Three in Iran

  Operation Long Jump was an alleged Axis plan to assassinate the Allied Big Three of Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill at the Teheran Conference of 1943. According to the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKDV), a Soviet law enforcement agency with ties to its secret police, ​​​​​German intelligence broke an American naval code and learned about a high level meeting in Teheran, Iran. A plan to kill all three Allied leaders was approved by Hitler and assigned to SS commando Otto Skorzeny. 

  In 1943, a team of six Nazi operatives arrived in Teheran and began transmitting radio messages to Berlin in anticipation of the arrival of Skorzeny and his team. Supposedly, the NKVD had advance knowledge of the plot from their counterintelligence and arrested the advance team, foiling the plot. Stalin informed his Allied counterparts of the mission at the conference; his assertion was met with skepticism, as the only confirmation came from the Soviets. After the war, German intelligence figures, including Skorzeny, denied such a plan ever existed. 
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  (#2) Operation Tannenbaum: A Nazi Invasion of Switzerland

  Adolf Hitler clearly disliked Switzerland. In 1941, he told Mussolini: "Switzerland possessed the most disgusting and miserable people and political system. The Swiss were the mortal enemies of the new Germany."  

  In fact, the Wehrmacht began preparations for an invasion of Switzerland after France surrendered in 1940, in what would have been called Operation Tannenbaum. Despite the creation of plans for such an invasion (plans revisited and revised several times), Hitler never ordered the attack.  

  A specific reason for his decision is still unclear, but Swiss financial concessions that allowed the Germans to obtain hard currencies and military equipment, Swiss prevention of the emigration of Jews and other refugees from Germany to Switzerland, continued Nazi access to Swiss railroad routes to Italy and other countries, and the realization that an invasion through the rugged Alpine region defended by a fully mobilized citizenry that was well equipped all were probably factors, especially the latter point. According to PBS, the Swiss armed 435,000 citizens with weapons equal to those the Nazis had, and told them never surrender. 

  Even though he despised Switzerland, Hitler understood the military reality of any invasion, and a two-front war from 1941 made a Swiss invasion an impossibility.
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  (#13) Operation Round Up: A Spring 1943 Invasion of Northern France

  Operation Round Up was a plan, drafted in 1942, for British and American troops to invade France in spring 1943. The Allies were under pressure by the Soviets to open a second front in Europe. Dwight Eisenhower proposed an invasion along a lengthy front of the English Channel, ranging from Le Havre to Boulogne, France. However, the Allies didn't have enough equipment or experienced combat personnel to implement such an ambitious plan.  

  Winston Churchill was opposed to the invasion of France until the Allies possessed overwhelming military superiority. Because of this, Operation Overlord, the D-Day invasion, didn't happen until June, 1944. In favor of Operation Round Up, allied forces focused on vulnerable Mediterranean coastlines, implementing Operation Torch, an invasion of French North Africa. 

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