Iceland_Announcement.pptx

Iceland The Battle of the Atlantic was the crucial struggle upon which all further Allied successes depended. Iceland dominated a long stretch of the heavily travelled and hotly contested North Atlantic convoy routes linking North America with the British Islands. Shortly after Germany overran Denmark and Norway, Britain secured Iceland both to deny it to the Germans and to take advantage of its strategic location. In July 1941 the United States, at the request of both Great Britain and newly independent Iceland, assumed responsibilities for the defense of Iceland. The American garrison rose to over 40,000, numbering more than Iceland’s entire adult male population. Naval and air bases in Iceland proved invaluable in the protracted campaign against German U-Boats. Icelandic bases provided a refuge for convoys and damaged ships. American pilots sighted U-Boats and sank them, or drew surface vessels on to them. Allied escorts and surface combatants staged at or through the Icelandic bases.

Iceland-Whale Fjord

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