Arctic Ops, Part I: Early Secret Military Cold War Arctic Operations
David Stern
One of the first aircraft assigned to the Cold Weather Test Detachment, Ladd Field, is this Douglas O-38E/F. It later crashed in the Alaska Bush and was recovered for the USAF Museum; its logbook exposed to the Alaska elements for several decades was still intact and readable. (Photo from the Norman Taylor collection)
Arctic
Ops Part I: Early Secret Military Cold War Arctic Operations
During WWII several less publicized combat
events occurred that directly and heavily influenced post-WWII U.S.
military strategy as political relations deteriorated between the U.S. and
the Soviet hierarchy – this shadow conflict is historically identified as
"the Cold War."Â They included WWII arctic aerial reconnaissance,
remotely situated and manned weather-radio stations, U-boat operations,
secret German arctic military installations – historical events that, in
combination, obliquely and directly influenced classified U.S. postwar
military operations in the Polar Regions. Many such operations were
initiated from within the Territory of Alaska or Canada, from the
airparticipation as a UK/USA Agreement partner.[1]
Arctic Combat
On April 9, 1940, German
troops invaded Denmark forcing King Christian X to order his people to
capitulate: orders were relayed by radio to independent thinking Governor
Eske Brun of Greenland (Kalaallit Nuinaat), the largest island (1,659
miles long and 840,000 square miles) in the Arctic hemisphere and a Danish
Commonwealth territory. Brun, deciding that Greenland must remain free of
German occupation, immediately contacted Washington, D.C., seeking
American food, military supplies and protection through the Danish
Minister still based in Washington, D.C.
The Roosevelt
Administration immediately dispatched U.S. Counsel James K. Penfield and
Vice Counsel George L. West aboard USCG Cutter
Comanche, landing them at Godthaaab – the seat
of Greenland’s Government Controller.[2] Meanwhile,
Brun created a 15-man (increased to 26 men) Greenlander army called the
Sledge Patrol, equipped with dog sled teams and hunting rifles to patrol
Greenland’s east coast. They consisted of two groups – one based at the
comfortable house at Eskimoness in N.E. Greenland, and one at Scoresby
Sound.[3]
U.S. Convoy Task Force 8,[4] under secret and "sealed orders,"Â sailed for
Western Greenland commanded by USAAC Col. Bernt Balchen, the famous arctic
explorer, navigator and pilot. Sites previously scouted by the U.S. Coast
Guard were occupied and construction of two main USAAC bases was
initiated; Narsaarsuaq (code-name Bluie West-One) south of the Arctic
Circle, inside Julianehaab Fjord,[5] another
north of the Arctic Circle inside the David Strait at Sondre Stromfjord
(code-name Bluie West-Eight)[6] and
one at Katek-Angmagsslik (code-name Bluie-East Two),[7] plus unidentified seaplane sites . . .
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