Project Iceworm was the code name for a top secret US Army program during the Cold War to build a network of mobile nuclear missile launch sites under the Greenland ice sheet. The ultimate objective of placing medium-range missiles under the ice – close enough to Moscow to strike targets within the Soviet Union – was kept secret from the Danish government. To study the feasibility of working under the ice, a highly publicized “cover” project, known as “Camp Century” was launched in 1960. However, unsteady ice conditions within the ice sheet caused the project to be cancelled in 1966.
A fully-functioning “underground city,” Camp Century even had its own mobile nuclear reactor—an “Alco PM-2A”—that kept the whole thing lit up and running during the Cold War.
Camp Century was a nuclear powered research center built by the US Army Corps of Engineers under the icy surface of Greenland. It was occupied from 1959 to 1966 under the auspices of the Army Polar Research and Development Center. Its climatically hostile environment was located a mere 800 miles from the North Pole. The site was chosen May 17, 1959. At 6180 feet above sea level, this flat plateau features a mean temperature of minus ten degrees Fahrenheit, recorded temperatures of minus 70 degrees and winds exceeding 125 mph. The average annual snow accumulation is four feet.
The overall project was under the command of Colonel John H. Kerkering. Captain Thomas C. Evans was the Project Officer for everything non-nuclear and Major James W. Barnett was the Resident Engineer and Nuclear Project Officer. Captain Andre G. Broumas was the inspirational commander of the first contingent to remain at Camp Century during the winter. “ANOTHER DAY IN WHICH TO EXCEL!” was his motto. Construction started June 1959 and was completed October 1960. The completed project cost $7,920,000, which included the $5,700,000 cost of the portable nuclear power plant.
To test the feasibility of construction techniques a project site called “Camp Century” was started, located at an elevation of 6,600 feet (2,000 m) in northwestern Greenland, 150 miles (240 km) from the US Thule Air Base. The American radar and air base at Thule had been in active use since 1951.
Camp Century was described at the time as a demonstration of affordable ice cap military outposts. The secret Project Iceworm was to be a system of tunnels 4,000 kilometres (2,500 mi) in length, used to deploy up to 600 nuclear missiles, that would be able to reach the USSR in case of nuclear war. The missile locations would be under the cover of Greenland’s ice sheet and were supposed to be periodically changed. While Project Iceworm was secret, plans for Camp Century were discussed with and approved by Denmark and the facility – including its nuclear power plant – was profiled in the Saturday Evening Post magazine in 1960.
As long as the excavation of some tranches within other military collected twenty-five meter-trailers building of a wooden frame, covered with shields teams. Buildings set on wooden bases, in order to maintain between the floor and the snow base layer of air. A similar layer remained along the walls, in order to avoid thawing.
The camp was held constant drilling of ice, with the publication of results in scientific journals and it was his official appointment. Since August 1960, the camp took two BSA as research assistants. The guys were serious selection and have lived in the camp for 5 months, and one of them came back a year later for a second season, becoming a geophysicist after graduation.
The “official purpose” of Camp Century, as explained by the US Department of Defense to Danish government officials in 1960, was to test various construction techniques under Arctic conditions, explore practical problems with a semi-mobile nuclear reactor, as well as supporting scientific experiments on the icecap. A total of 21 trenches were cut and covered with arched roofs within which prefabricated building were erected. With a total length of 3,000 metres (1.9 mi), these tunnels also contained a hospital, a shop, a theater and a church. The total number of inhabitants was around 200. From 1960 until 1963 the electricity supply was provided by means of the world’s first mobile/portable nuclear reactor, designated the PM-2A and designed by Alco for the US Army. Water was supplied by melting glaciers and tested to determine if germs such as the plague were present.
Within three years after it was excavated, ice core samples taken by geologists working at Camp Century demonstrated that the glacier was moving much faster than anticipated, and would destroy the tunnels and planned launch stations in about two years. The facility was evacuated in 1965 and the nuclear generator removed. Project Iceworm was cancelled and Camp Century closed in 1966.
The project generated valuable scientific information and provided scientists with some of the first ice cores, still being used by climatologists today.