Military role of Icelanders in WWII?

[Sid Guttridge]

Were Icelanders actively engaged in supporting the Allied occupation force over 1940-45?

If so, how?

Many thanks,

Sid.

[Sid Guttridge]

I have been digging a bit deeper.

In order to retain its credibility as a neutral the Iceland government did not offer direct military support. However, it did nothing to stop pro-Alled political parties recruiting supporters as coast watchers in areas the Allies had no presence, or individuals from working on the construction of Allied airfields (on some of which they provided the majority of manpowetr 0. Some Icelandic trawlers were also free to serve the Allies as fishing boats.

Cheers,

Sid

[phylo_roadking]

However, it did nothing to stop pro-Alled political parties recruiting supporters as coast watchers in areas the Allies had no presence, or individuals from working on the construction of Allied airfields (on some of which they provided the majority of manpower)

Sid, can I ask what your reference for this last point is? During my research on RAF Kaldadarnes there was no mention of this at all - in fact the longstanding problems with flooding, rivers oveflowing etc. at that location would hint that the RAF actually ignored local advice/help! (Not unlike present events in Somerset....)

I'd also be interested in knowing which airfields; as well as the known "bases" it appears that a lot of Allied (first British then U.S.) installations on Iceland had grass "communication" airstrips...given that during the war years the Icelandic road network comprised one (1) road that circumnavigated the island....sections of it being built by the Allies!

Also regarding this - "were Icelanders actively engaged in supporting the Allied occupation force over 1940-45?" - are you interesed in government level only, or government and individuals?

What about opposition to the Allied occupation....?

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Phylo,

It is in The Lion and the White Falcon by Donald F. Bittner, (Archon, 1983), which I have just got on Inter Library Loan. It is based on PRO/NA material and is fully footnoted.

I saw your "Carry On Kaldadarnes" thread. Bittner is a bit more charitable.

From memory (I will correct this later, if needs be), he says the Kaldadarnes site was chosen by a flyingboat specialist, who overlooked the sites of Reykjavik and Keflavik.

In favour of Kaldadarnes was the fact that the site could be prepared most quickly to give any sort of ground-based local air cover and was capable of operating Fairey Battles from August 1940. The following month the main focus of construction then switched to the more difficult to prepare Reykjavik site, where a combination of up to 2,500 Icelanders, 249 Faroese and a rotating body of British infantry from 147 and 70 Brigades was used to provide an unskilled labour force totalling 4,000. Reykjavik's first runway seems to have been been declared usable on 28 May 1941.

Cheers,

Sid.

[phylo_roadking]

It is in The Lion and the White Falcon by Donald F. Bittner, (Archon, 1983), which I have just got on Inter Library Loan. It is based on PRO/NA material and is fully footnoted.

I saw your "Carry On Kaldadarnes" thread. Bittner is a bit more charitable.

From memory (I will correct this later, if needs be), he says the Kaldadarnes site was chosen by a flyingboat specialist, who overlooked the sites of Reykjavik and Keflavik.

In favour of Kaldadarnes was the fact that the site could be prepared most quickly to give any sort of ground-based local air cover and was capable of operating Fairey Battles from August 1940. The following month the main focus of construction then switched to the more difficult to prepare Reykjavik site, where a combination of up to 2,500 Icelanders, 249 Faroese and a rotating body of British infantry from 147 and 70 Brigades was used to provide an unskilled labour force totalling 4,000. Reykjavik's first runway seems to have been been declared usable on 28 May 1941.

Sid, there's an icelandic aviation society/museum and a local airline have online sites with history content, but reading the content relies on the excreble Microsoft autotranslator

Plans to turn Reykjavik into a fully-fledged metalled runway airport...prior to this there were several small domestic air companies working out of a single grass runway at the location...were actually submitted in the second half of the 1930s (possibly around 1936 IIRC, it's been several years now since I tracked down any of this in the long multi-thread encounter with Chromeboomerang/Black Hornet). Prior to that again, it had actually been a "green field" site - early flights in the area in 1919 (a privately-imported war surplus Avro 504 giving joy rides at various locations round the island ) were in fact literally from a sports field! Somewhere on one of those threads I posted up an early pencil drawing of the plans for Reykjavik airport.

Anyway, SOME preliminary work was done on those plans before the war (a three-runway metalled airport was going to be a HUGE investment for Iceland!) but what little was done suffered similar problems to Kaldadarnes - specifically, its then-single grass runway flooded and bogged occasionally; a Lufthansa Condor got bogged down there in 1938 (whatever it was doing there!!!) So what the British in effect did was try to complete those plans for Reykjavik...the problems with doing so however being the vital factor in delaying work at Reykjavik - "in favour of Kaldadarnes was the fact that the site could be prepared most quickly to give any sort of ground-based local air cover and was capable of operating Fairey Battles from August 1940." In reality, Kaldadarnes in its early days ALSO relied on problematic grass flightlines that weren't finished being replaced with metalled runways until 1941...but that even the grass (mud) flightline there that gave problems was judged a better shortterm prospect than Reykjavik says volumes about the conditions at Reykjavik' pre-war grass strip BEFORE the British started work there!

THIS is interesting -

From memory (I will correct this later, if needs be), he says the Kaldadarnes site was chosen by a flyingboat specialist, who overlooked the sites of Reykjavik and Keflavik.

...because timewise IIRC work on the RAF flying boat base just outside Reykjavik began in parallel with Kaldadarnes.

Reykjavik's first runway seems to have been been declared usable on 28 May 1941

....and thereby hangs a quite considerable tale...

The problem with developing Reykjavik as per the 1930s plans was that developing all three planned runways involved the demolition of quite a lot of wooden housing along one side of the proposed airport location (still in use today, Reykjavik is only a mile and a quarter from the city centre and noise and safety concerns greatly restrict what runways can be used when). The British went ahead with this demolition, although it caused a LOT of ill-feeling (obviously!) which was further whipped up by Communist agitators Iceland actually had a few quite active Communist/Socialist societies and organisations, a couple of which published small-circulation newspapers, and one of these papers was the principal instrument by which opposition to the demolitions was whipped up...resulting in at least one small riot!

As a result of this - and how it was suppressed AND the demolitions themselves, the Icelandic "government" withdrew support from the occupation for some months - but the newspaper in question was also shut down As you note above, a lot of the cooperation was at an individual employment/service industry level, so that "withdrawal of cooperation" didn't actually matter very much and the three-runway RAF Reykjavik was eventually finished in its present planform!

P.S. if Bittner is fully footnoted, it might be an idea to go direct to the Kew material for more detail on the above - for something as "big" administratively as the occupation of Iceland is bound to have generated quite a lot of paper! If it's still in existence and hasn't been "weeded"...it might only give you one side of events, but for anything Icelandic/Danish language you'd probably have to go to Iceland!

But ongoing issues with the geography/terrain at the site - the Americans decided Reykjavik couldn't accomodate USAAF four-engined bombers - resulted in the Americans shifting development to Keflavik instead after they took over in 1941.