Greenland Patrol

Earth's atmospheric circulation pattern requires westerly meteorological observations for prediction of weather conditions to the east. Weather observation stations in Greenland improved the accuracy of weather forecasting for the Atlantic Ocean and northern Europe for tactical advantage in the Battle of the Atlantic and European theatre of World War II.Ruge (1957) pp.285-287 Greenland had been part of the Danish colonial empire since 1814. Greenland appeared relatively unprotected following German occupation of Denmark on 9 April 1940. The Allies of World War II became concerned about the possibility of Axis military bases on Greenland.Willoughby (1957) pp.95&96 The cryolite mine at Ivittuut was a strategically important source of flux for electrolysis of aluminum ores by the Hall–Héroult process for aircraft production.Tilley, p.2&3

United States Coast Guard personnel had acquired extensive experience in the waters around Greenland as part of their International Ice Patrol duties since 1915. Following negotiations with the Danish Minister to Washington, the United States opened a consulate at Nuuk; and the {{USCGC|Comanche|WPG-76|6}} transported the first American Consul to Ivittuut in May 1940. The United States then agreed to sell armaments to Greenland; and fourteen Coast Guardsmen were discharged to act as civilian armed guards protecting the cryolite mine with a {{convert|3|in|cm|adj=on}} gun offloaded from the {{USCGC|Campbell|WPG-32|6}}. {{USCGC|Duane|WPG-33|6}} conducted an air survey of Greenland's west coast in August 1940, while {{USCGC|Northland|WPG-49|6}} cruised along Greenland's east coast searching for evidence of European military activity and compiling information for publication of a Greenland Pilot. Northland discovered three weather reporting stations being operated by Norwegians reporting conditions to Germany. The United States State Department reported the situation to British authorities who dispatched a Norwegian gunboat to arrest the Norwegians and close the weather stations.Hussey On 17 March 1941 USCGC Cayuga sailed from Boston with the South Greenland Survey Expedition to locate and recommend sites for airfields, seaplane bases, radio stations, meteorological stations, and aids to navigation. Northland relieved Cuyuga on 17 May 1941 to continue the survey expedition after Cuyuga was turned over to the Royal Navy as HMS Totland.

The United States occupied Greenland on 9 April 1941 under the expansive doctrine adopted at the Havana Conference (1940). As the survey results became available, construction began on a radio and aerological station on Akia Island and airfields at Narsarsuaq and at Kipisako near Ivittuut. Narsarsuaq Air Base was code-named Bluie West 1 (or BW1), and became the major Allied airfield in Greenland. Thousands of planes stopped there to refuel en route to England.

In the autumn of 1942, Germany implemented Operation Notch transporting a weather party to eastern Greenland aboard the weather ship Hermann. The ship remained icebound while the weather party radioed weather observations hoping they would not be found in the darkness of polar winter. Similar weather station Operations Viola and Edelweiss were supported by the weather ships Coburg in the autumn of 1943, and Kehdingen in the autumn of 1944.

{{see also|Greenland in World War II}}

A South Greenland Patrol was established on 1 June 1941 with Geodetic Survey ship Bowdoin, tug {{USS|Raritan|WYT-93|6}}, and cutters USCGC Comanche and {{USCGC|Modoc|WPG-46|6}}. {{USS|Bear|1874|6}} with {{USCGC|North Star|WPG-59|6}} and USCGC Northland established a Northeast Greenland Patrol a month later. The two patrols were consolidated in October 1941 as Task Force 24.8, the Greenland Patrol of the Atlantic Fleet. USCG Commander Edward H. Smith, who had been in charge of the Northeast Greenland Patrol, was given command of the combined force and soon afterward promoted to captain.{{cite web |url=https://compass.coastguard.blog/2020/09/03/the-long-blue-line-edward-iceberg-smith-coast-guards-admiral-of-the-ice/ |title=The Long Blue Line: Edward "Iceberg" Smith—Coast Guard's admiral of the ice! |first=William H. |last=Thiesen |date=3 September 2020 |publisher=U.S. Coast Guard |access-date=13 September 2020}}

On 12 September 1941 Northland intercepted the Norwegian sealer Buskø, which was supporting a German radio station transmitting weather information to Germany. Northland put a prize crew aboard Buskø, captured the radio station with some code information, and interned the personnel at Boston.Willoughby (1957) pp.99&100

The Greenland Patrol was responsible for escorting ships bringing men and supplies to Greenland, and sometimes for breaking a path through the ice to assist their arrival. On 25 August 1942 {{USCGC|Mojave|WPG-47|6}} was escorting the United States Army Transport Chatham as the fast section of convoy SG 6 while {{USCGC|Mohawk|WPG-78|6}} and Algonquin were escorting the slow section of {{USS|Laramie|AO-16|6}} and {{USS|Harjurand|ARS-31|2}} with steamships Biscaya, Arlyn and Alcoa Guard. Chatham and Arlyn were sunk by {{GS|U-517||2}} and Laramie was damaged by {{GS|U-165|1941|2}}.Willoughby (1957) p.101

Danes, Norwegians, and Inuit were recruited into a sledge patrol to search for additional Axis weather reporting stations along the coast. Sledge expeditions also rescued Allied airmen making forced landings on the Greenland ice cap. Coast Guard work parties built range lights, shore markers and LORAN radio beacons to aid navigation. Northland landed 41 men with thirty tons of equipment to establish a high-frequency direction finding station on Jan Mayen in November 1942.Willoughby (1957) pp.100-104 The sledge patrol attacked the Operation Notch weather station supported by Hermann and captured some weather station personnel before the remainder were rescued by German aircraft. Hermann was sunk by allied aircraft.

The Greenland Patrol was augmented in the summer of 1942 by ten fishing trawlers purchased in Boston, repainted in blue and white Thayer system camouflage, and given Inuit names. Natsek disappeared on 17 December 1942 while transiting the Strait of Belle Isle with Nanok and {{USS|Bluebird|AM-72|2}} in gale-force winds with blinding snow. The {{convert|116|ft|m|adj=on}} trawler was never seen again, and may have been capsized by ice accumulation from freezing spray in heavy seas. Surviving trawlers were returned to their civilian owners in 1944 as Tacoma-class frigates became available for weather ship duties.Silverstone (1968) pp.246-252&384-385

{{SS|Dorchester||6}} of convoy SG 19 was torpedoed by {{GS|U-223||2}} on 2 February 1943 while being escorted by {{USCGC|Tampa|1921|6}}, {{USCGC|Escanaba|WPG-77|2}} and Comanche. Despite rescue efforts by the cutters, 675 men died of hypothermia or drowning in the worst United States troopship sinking of the war.Morison (1975) pp.331-334 Escanaba was later destroyed by a mysterious explosion on 13 June 1943.Tilley, pp.13&14

From October 1943 Coast Guard Patrol Bombing Squadron Six operated twelve Consolidated PBY Catalinas from Narsarsuaq Air Base, Naval Station Argentia, and Reykjavík Airport providing reconnaissance, antisubmarine patrol, mail delivery, rescue service, and observation surveys of ice conditions for ships of the Greenland Patrol. Aircraft greatly improved patrol efficiency when weather conditions were suitable for flying. Ships of the Greenland Patrol acted as plane guards on weather patrol stations in the Davis Strait, Denmark Strait, and south of Cape Farewell maintaining radio contact with trans-Atlantic aircraft flights and provided rescue service for aircraft ditching at sea.Willoughby (1957) pp.106&108 In November 1943, USCG Commodore Earl G. Rose, a decorated veteran of World War I escort duty, succeeded Edward Smith as commander of the Greenland Patrol.{{cite web |url=https://www.history.uscg.mil/Browse-by-Topic/Notable-People/All/Article/1897412/rear-admiral-earl-g-rose/ |title=Rear Admiral Earl G. Rose |publisher=U.S. Coast Guard Historian's Office |access-date=13 September 2020}}

Between July and October 1944, Northland, {{USCGC|Storis|WMEC-38|2}}, {{USCGC|Eastwind|WAGB-279|2}} and {{USCGC|Southwind|WAGB-280|2}} operated against Axis weather stations on the northeast coast of Greenland. Coburg was destroyed in July after being damaged by ice and her weather party evacuated by a U-boat. Northland intercepted Kehdingen and captured her German weather party, while escaping an attack by the escorting U-703 when the U-boat's torpedoes detonated on floating ice. Failure of the first attempt at Operation Edelweiss produced a followup effort by the weather ship Externsteine which was similarly intercepted. Capture of sixty German weather personnel effectively ended Axis weather observation from Greenland in October 1944.Willoughby (1957) pp.108-110

Some ships of the Greenland Patrol were conventional cutters briefly assigned to the patrol. Others were unique and sometimes historic vessels specifically designed for polar exploration and well suited to conditions encountered by the patrol. Larger cutters escorted {{em|SG}} convoys of freighters and troopships between Sydney, Nova Scotia and the larger {{em|G}}reenland ports serving Narsarsuaq Air Base and the Ivittuut cryolite mine, while trawlers and tugs (sometimes towing barges) distributed supplies from those ports to smaller Army Bluie bases on remote fjords without port facilities.Novak

Three cutters in the Patrol (Bear, Bowdoin and Northland) were equipped with sails. This was, most probably, the last time sail powered ships were used for wartime missions.{{citation needed|date=April 2019}}

There is an annual memorial wreath dedication in memory of the Greenland Patrol, conducted by the U.S. Coast Guard.The Day, World War II Greenland Patrol honored during ceremony

• Wilson, Sloan, Ice Brothers. 1979. (Arbor House). {{ISBN|978-0-87795-232-9}}

• United States Coast Guard Aviation History. n.d., 1941: The Coast Guard and the Greenland Operations[https://cgaviationhistory.org/1941-the-coast-guard-greenland-operations/ "1941: The Coast Guard and the Greenland Operations."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231102204026/https://cgaviationhistory.org/1941-the-coast-guard-greenland-operations/ |date=2 November 2023 }} Coast Guard Aviation Association. Retrieved July 8, 2021.
• Novak, Thaddeus D. and P.J. Capelotti. 1942. Life and Death on the Greenland Patrol, Reissued by the University Press of Florida (2005). {{ISBN|978-0-8130-2912-2}}. Novak kept a diary of his time as a Coast Guardsman in the North Atlantic.
• Tilley, John A. The Coast Guard and the Greenland Patrol[https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/pdf/iip/history/The_Coast_Guard_and_the_Greenland_Patrol.pdf "The Coast Guard and the Greenland Patrol"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190830035329/https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/pdf/iip/history/The_Coast_Guard_and_the_Greenland_Patrol.pdf |date=30 August 2019 }}. United States Coast Guard. Retrieved July 26, 2018.
• Wilson, Sloan. 1976. What Shall We Wear to This Party?: The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, Twenty Years Before & After (Arbor House). {{ISBN|978-0-87795-119-3}}. Part 2, "Ignorance is Death," pp. 55–129, describes the author's entry into the U.S. Coast Guard as an ensign, assigned first to the {{USS|Tampa|WPG-48|6}}. He was transferred to the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Nogak to become executive officer and later promoted to captain.

{{reflist}}

• {{cite web |title=World War II Greenland Patrol honored during ceremony |url=https://www.theday.com/article/20160606/NWS09/160609460 |website=The Day |publisher=The Day Publishing Company |access-date=14 April 2020 |location=New London, Connecticut |date=June 6, 2016}}
• {{cite web |url=http://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a245396.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151206215517/http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a245396.pdf |url-status=live |archive-date=6 December 2015 |title=The U.S. Navy, The Neutrality Patrol, and Atlantic Fleet Escort Operations 1939−1941 |last=Hussey |first=Brian F. Jr. |publisher=United States Naval Academy |access-date=19 June 2017 }}
• {{cite book |last1=Kafka |first1=Roger |last2=Pepperburg |first2=Roy L. |title =Warships of the World |publisher =Cornell Maritime Press |date =1946 }}
• {{cite book | last = Morison | first = Samuel Eliot | year = 1975 | title = History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Volume 1: The Battle of the Atlantic September 1939 – May 1943 | publisher = Little, Brown and Company | location = Boston }}
• {{cite book | last = Morison | first = Samuel Eliot | year = 1962 | title = History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Volume 15: Supplement and General Index | publisher = Little, Brown and Company | location = Boston }}
• {{cite web |url=http://www.uscg.mil/history/weboralhistory/WoodenShoe.pdf |title=Death of a Wooden Shoe |last=Novak |first=Thaddeus D. |publisher=United States Coast Guard |access-date=8 August 2014 }}
• {{cite book |last=Ruge |first=Friedrich |author-link =Friedrich Ruge |title =Der Seekrieg |publisher =United States Naval Institute |date =1957 |location =Annapolis, Maryland }}
• {{cite book |last=Silverstone |first=Paul H. |title =U.S. Warships of World War II |publisher =Doubleday & Company |date =1968 |location =Garden City, New York }}
• {{cite web |url=http://www.uscg.mil/History/articles/GreenlandPatrol.pdf |title=The Coast Guard and the Greenland Patrol |last=Tilley |first=John A. |publisher=United States Coast Guard |access-date=7 August 2014 }}
• {{cite book |last=Willoughby |first=Malcolm F. |title =The U.S. Coast Guard in World War II |url=https://archive.org/details/uscoastguardinw00will |url-access=registration |publisher =United States Naval Institute |date =1957 |location =Annapolis, Maryland }}

Category:Battle of the Atlantic

Category:History of the United States Coast Guard