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Greenland found itself in a bind when Denmark, its colonial power, fell to Germans in 1940. Eske Brun, the landsfoged (bailiff) of Greenland, sought Allied help. In 1941 Greenland was made a U.S. protectorate. The U.S. took on the nearly impossible task of patroling the thousand-mile long coast full of fjords, bays, and islands. Greenland's importance was twofold: 1) its weather stations supplied reports of crucial importance to the Northern Atlantic theater, 2) the cryolite mines in Ivigtut were a major producer of aircraft-grade aluminum. | ||
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The cryolite mines in Ivigtut (summer 1940) | ||
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Starting in 1941 the Germans managed to establish a few well-hidden weather stations in Greenland by launching secret missions from Norway. By 1944 all of these stations were either taken out in air raids or captured by U.S. Coast Guard. |
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The captured German vessel Externsteine trapped in ice north of Shannon Island | ||
U.S. Coast Guard with captured German supplies and the ensign of the Externsteine | ||
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In the context of the book, it's also worth showing the snow and mud adaptations of the Kübelwagen, the German jeep (photos from 1942) |
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| Photo credits: |
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