By Christopher Miskimon
Weather prediction was vital to nearly all the war efforts of the Axis and the Allies during World War II. The D-Day landings in Normandy on June 6, 1944, offer an example of one of the most crucial events that depended upon accurate weather forecasting. Whether on land, at sea, or in the air, soldiers, sailors and airmen needed to know when the elements were working for or against them. Predicting European weather conditions benefited greatly from weather monitoring in the North Atlantic region. This is why Nazi Germany set up covert weather monitoring stations in Greenland during the war.
The Allies knew the advantages these monitoring stations provided and made extensive efforts to find and eliminate them. Much of the work fell to the United States Coast Guard and teams of Scandinavians formed into patrols using sled dogs to navigate the barren coastal areas. Just staying alive in the brutal cold and winds of an arctic region required specialized equipment and skills. Both sides sought men with polar and mountain experience to plan and lead the groups which set up the stations and those who searched for them.
Greenland also held deposits of cryolite, valuable for its use in aluminum production. The allies had to safeguard shipments, something the Germans knew and deliberately targeted. Without cryolite, Allied aircraft production would suffer at a critical time. A perilous game of cat and mouse ensued. Coast Guard cutters sailed the waters along the coast, sailing into fjords in search of the small freighters the Germans used to land their teams. U-Boats were a constant threat; in one instance on February 2, 1943, a German submarine sank the SS Dorchester. The converted U.S. Army transport carried 900 troops to reinforce the Greenland garrison; 675 perished in the frigid waters. This included four chaplains who gave their life preservers to others who needed them. All four died, becoming forever immortalized as the “Four Chaplains.”
The sled patrols were at first civilians, but the governor of Greenland, Eske Brun, soon militarized them, giving each a military rank and armband to identify them. He feared the Germans might otherwise shoot them as partisans, as Denmark was under German occupation at the time. Soon the patrols carried machine guns, grenades and pistols instead of hunting rifles. Interestingly, they had to start carrying full metal jacket ammunition instead of their normal hollow point ‘dum dum’ bullets, which were more effective at stopping polar bears, but were considered illegal to use in warfare under existing conventions.
The battles in and around Greenland are little known today, despite their importance in supporting the overall war effort. This shortcoming is thoroughly rectified in Fury and Ice: Greenland, The United States and Germany in World War II (Peter Harmsen, Casemate Publishing, Havertown PA, 2024, 224 pp., maps, photographs, appendix, notes, bibliography, index, $34.95, HC).
The fighting for Greenland is told in personal stories of diplomats posturing for advantage, Allied and Axis leaders trying to win the war and most importantly the soldiers, sailors and airmen fighting both each other and nature. The author has over two decades of experience as an international correspondent; his eye for detail and expert storytelling ability show through in this book. The volume also contains good maps and a set of interesting photographs. The narrative is readable and full of the small details which normally escape a more general account.
Join The Conversation
Comments
View All Comments