US defence of Greenland
From our own correspondent
12 April 1941
New York
Many believe that the United States has achieved a dramatic victory over Germany by obtaining an agreement with Denmark to protect Greenland. The agreement was announced yesterday. It is believed that Germany was ready to seize the southern end of Greenland for an airbase. It is understood that German bombers and transports were waiting in Norway to effect the seizure.
The United States Coast Guard may already have moved to hold the land granted under the agreement. If not it will do so within a few hours. The government is sending planes to Greenland at once for the defence of outposts which will provide intermediate landing fields for short-range American planes on their way to Britain. Fighters with a range of 1,000 miles could “hop” to Newfoundland, Greenland, and Iceland, on their way to Britain. Also American naval vessels carrying materials to the new bases could keep an unofficial watch on sea lanes, thus giving some protection to merchant shipping as far as mid-Atlantic.
Editorial: defence of Greenland
12 April 1941
By assuming responsibility for the defence of Greenland, a Danish colony and the largest island in the world, the United States government has taken a momentous step which will greatly displease Berlin. The Nazis, who have always made such a fetish of political geography, are hoist with their own petard. For, although, as stated in the preamble to the treaty, this action is in accordance with a broad hint in a resolution by the Administrative Council of Greenland last May, the spokesman of the state department makes no bones about justifying it by the policy of western hemisphere defence which is President Roosevelt’s up-to-date version of the Monroe Doctrine.
Article 4 of the treaty, incidentally, specifies that landing fields for aeroplanes and harbour facilities for ships will be available for all American nations and merely for the United States. This move can only gratify the British government, which, it may be called, occupied another Danish possession, the Faeroes, in April last year for the same reason – that a Denmark under German occupation could no longer exercise her trust. Danish sovereignty over Greenland is expressly safeguarded, as also are her native laws and customs.
What exactly is the position of the present government in Copenhagen is uncertain. All we know is that the treaty was duly made with the Danish minister in Washington – on the same day he was required by his government to deliver an emphatic protest against the purchase of using of Danish ships recently taken into protective custody.
US and Greenland: proposal to buy from Denmark denied
30 January 1947
Mr Lincoln White, press officer of the Department of State, tonight denied that the United States have ever approached Denmark with a proposal to buy Greenland. He added that Greenland’s future had been discussed between American and Danish officials but not along the lines suggested in the Copenhagen Ekstra Bladet, which said the United States was anxious to buy Greenland or rent aircraft bases there.
US aid to defend Greenland
28 April 1951
Copenhagen
An agreement for the joint defence of Greenland by Denmark and the United States was signed here to-day. It follows a month’s discussion here between Danish and American representatives. A communique gave the main points as:
The present American naval station at Groennedal to be handed over to Denmark, with the existing American establishments. Atlantic-treaty countries to have certain rights of entry to the harbour. Greenland to be divided, if necessary, into defence areas run in conjunction between Denmark and the United States, the nationality of the commanding officer to be decided by agreement. Present plans call for the setting up of only a few such defence areas, all under American command. Both countries to aid each other in land, sea, and air traffic. American troops in Greenland to be exempt from tax and Customs duties.
The agreement is to remain in force for the duration of the North Atlantic Treaty. It has also been agreed that local defence forces will have a Danish commander.
New US air bases in Greenland
18 November 1952
Copenhagen
At least four major United States air force bases will be built in Greenland in addition to the three already operating there, Danish government sources announced to-day.
The new bases will be hundreds of miles closer to Moscow and the western rim of the Soviet Union than the existing base at Thule. They will lie right across the path which Soviet bombers may be expected to follow in any mission against the chief industrial areas in the eastern United States and around the Great Lakes.
For security reasons details of the exact size and capacity of the bases cannot be disclosed. There is, however, reason to believe that the construction programme will be among the biggest of its kind ever carried out. The project calls for building two or three completely new bases and for the reopening and expansion of another two bases which the United States air force built during the second world war and then abandoned.
Three American bases are already in use in Greenland. The largest and newest is “Blue Jay” at Thule, in the far north-west. The other two, built during the war, are on the west coast.
Aircraft on the icecap: the base at Thule
By AJ Fischer
12 November 1956
Thule, whose aluminium huts look like a collection of sardine tins, is a highly mechanised military base and a men’s town. The plane lands on an airstrip three kilometres long, but no doors are opened until it reaches the hangar, since the temperature may drop to 47 degrees below zero. Thule boasts one of the finest and best-equipped military airfields in the world to-day. The building costs alone took $500m. The first steps were taken secretly in 1951 when planes bringing the first building materials had to travel 4,000kms. Later 50 transport ships, accompanied by icebreakers, reached the improvised harbour. However, landings are possible for only about 70 days in the year. The rest of the time the Melville Bay is completely frozen over.
This is an edited extract. Read the full article. See also: Atomic village in the ice.
Plane crashes through ice with H-bombs
From our own correspondent
23 January 1968
An American B-52 bomber, believed to be carrying four unarmed hydrogen bombs, crashed in Greenland yesterday. The Pentagon admitted today that the place was carrying nuclear weapons but it declined precisely to identify them. It is believed that the bomber crashed through the ice and took the bombs into the freezing water.
In Copenhagen the Danish government made no attempt to conceal its concern at the incident. The prime minister, Mr Krag, called on Washington for more information and reiterated that his government prohibited nuclear weapons on Danish soil. He added: “This applies to Greenland as well and consequently no aeroplane carrying atom bombs can pass over Greenland territory.”
Radioactive ice cleared by airmen
4 March 1968
United States airmen with shovels and axes have begun the task of moving tons of radioactive snow and ice from the area in Greenland where a B-52 aircraft carrying four hydrogen bombs crashed last month. The snow and ice will be placed in 18,000 gallon sealed metal containers and stored at the Thule airbase in Greenland until it can be removed by ship this summer when Greenland’s coast becomes passable.
