The correspondence principle of viscoelasticity is applied to obtain the plane-wave impulse response of a laterally compressed viscoelastic plate floating on a perfect liquid. The system is analyed as a wave guide having a small damping factor. A four-parameter linear viscoelastic model is used to simulate the characteristics of a sheet of floating ice. Values appropriate for small deflections in sea ice are used to produce illustrative examples of the displacement and the vertical loading stress caused by the bending produced in an ice sheet by plane waves arising from a unit line force moving uniformly across the sheet. Because the displacement of the viscoelastic plate remains finite, this technique provides a means for making engineering estimates of the stress produced by waves at the critical frequency.