USCG HISTORY: On this day, October 25, 1941 -The Navy formally established the Greenland Patrol by combining the South Greenland Patrol with the three cutters of the Northeast Greenland Patrol. --------------------------------------------------- Contrary to popular belief, Pearl Harbor was not the first military action of the United States armed forces during World War II. American involvement in Greenland, months before Pearl Harbor, led to this countrys initial wartime capture by the Coast Guard cutter Northland. ----------------------------- The first military capture of World War II has largely been forgotten over the years. But the fact remains, United States Coast Guard forces, in a foreign land, captured a party of men operating with the Germans three months before war was declared. This was an extremely bold action and a sample of the role that the Coast Guard would play in this nations largest war. -------------------------------- In April 1941, the Coast Guard had been tasked informally with patrolling the waters around Greenland. At this time, the Battle of the Atlantic had raged for over eighteen months. Convoys steaming to and from the British Isles carried vital wartime materials. Merchant shipping had suffered tremendous losses from German submarines that prowled the western approaches to the European Continent. The United States sought to prevent war from spilling into its waters and to protect neutral shipping. ----------------------------------------------- To maintain this defensive responsibility the Coast Guard, with long years of Arctic service, provided the initial vessels for the patrol. The cutters Northland, Bear, and North Star were assigned to keep the northeastern portion of Greenland under surveillance. Commander Edward H. Iceberg Smith commanded the newly formed Northeast Greenland Patrol. Smith received orders to do much with little. He was to convoy U.S. Army transports, ore carrying vessels and supply ships, break ice for them if necessary, continue hydrographic surveying, maintain communications between the U.S. and Greenland government posts, rescue survivors of submarine attacks, maintain air and surface patrols, construct and maintain aids to navigation, bring supplies to small Danish settlements and Eskimos, and discover and destroy enemy weather and radio stations in Greenland. During the summer of 1941, the vessels of the Greenland Patrol faithfully performed the many missions assigned. The United States meanwhile inched closer to war in Europe. In July, the Danish defense agreement having worked so well, the United States signed a similar defensive agreement with Iceland to prevent its seizure by German forces. Shortly afterwards, the island was occupied by American troops. On 11 September, after the destroyer Greer was attacked while on patrol off Iceland, President Roosevelt issued his shoot on sight order to U.S. Naval forces. The same day, by Executive Order, portions of the Coast Guard began operating as part of the Navy. The day following the Presidential shoot on sight warning, Commander Smith, in the cutter North Star, acting on a tip from a dog-team patrol, sent the Northland to investigate a fishing vessel which had reportedly landed a party in a fjord. The Northland, a 2,065 ton cruising cutter, had been fitted with depth charges and a reconnaissance seaplane for arctic duty. The skipper of the Northland, Commander Carl C. von Paulsen followed the vessel into McKenzie Bay and sent a boarding team over for inspection. The Coast Guardsmen found twenty-seven persons on the Norwegian sealer identified as the Buskoe. At this stage of the war, Norwegians were considered suspicious and were routinely stopped and questioned by the Coast Guard since Germany had invaded Norway in April. see more at: The First U.S. Naval Capture of World War II: USCGC Northland uscg.mil/history/articles/northland.asp The Coast Guard At War: Greenland Patrol (Official History Series, Volume II, 1945). uscg.mil/history/articles/USCGatWar-GreenlandPatrol.pdf
Posted on: Sat, 25 Oct 2014 17:20:42 +0000
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