Passengers aboard the Comanche included U.S. The mine’s workforce consisted of Danes and a few Swedes. Comanche’s first port call was Ivigtut to visit the cryolite mine’s processing facility, which was located on Arsuk Fjord. On the 10th, Coast Guard Cutter Comanche departed for Greenland to establish the consulate in Godthaab. The combined councils in Greenland formally requested American assistance on May 3, and invited the U.S. She lobbied for establishing American military bases in Greenland. ambassadors to Denmark and Marie Peary Stafford, the Greenland-born daughter of American Arctic explorer, Robert Peary. The commission initially consisted of nine American members. Funding came mainly from exports of cryol ite. also needed the political and diplomatic cover to protect Greenland.Īmbassador Kauffmann established the American Greenland Commission April 25, 1940, to deal with the welfare and economy of the population in Greenland (at that time, about 18,000 natives and 400 Danes). ![]() Next, Roosevelt warned all belligerents to stay out of Greenland. would protect the territory’s neutrality. ![]() Roosevelt asked him to stay out of Greenland and indicated the U.S. During a late April visit, the Canadian Prime Minister met with President Roosevelt at Warm Springs, Georgia. State Department of this plan, and of Britain’s plan to seize Iceland. On April 16, 1940, Canada informed the U.S. Canada was building airplanes for Britain, and it obtained cryolite from Ivigtut, so Canada began to mobilize a “Force X” to seize the mine. to maintain its own neutrality, while it was necessary that Kauffmann maintain the facade of rep-resenting his king’s government, which was now under German control.īritain and Canada had their own strategic interests in Greenland. Before it entered the war, it was important for the U.S. State Department and Greenland’s two governors. The Danish ambassador to the U.S., Henrik de Kauffmann, promptly consulted with the U.S. ![]() There was no military presence, militia, nor even a police force in Greenland. Now, its population was cut off and defenseless. Greenland had been dependent upon Denmark for its trade and economy and was closed to outsiders. Meanwhile, various interested parties scrambled. The Inuit people called cryolite “The ice that does not melt in summer.” The miner-al cryolite (in its natural form or in its synthetic form) is necessary to the electrolytic process producing aluminum and this mine was the United States’ only commercial source of the mineral required for producing aircraft. The Americans immediate strategic interest was the cryolite mine at Ivigtut, located near the tip of Greenland. That was followed by the Pan American Conference known as the Act of Panama of October 1939, and America’s revised Neutrality Act, of November 1939 announcing the joint defense of the Western Hemisphere. In September 1939, President Franklin Roosevelt had al-ready established a “Neutrality Zone” along the East Coast, which extended 300 miles offshore. policy kept the war in Europe out of the Western Hemisphere. Unlike Iceland, Greenland is part of the Western Hemisphere and U.S. ![]() The status of Greenland, however, remained uncertain. On April 10, Denmark’s colony of Ice-land declared its independence from the mother country. Suddenly, America’s strategic interests in Greenland were jeopardized.Īfter occupation, the Danish king ordered all Danes to submit to their new master, and Germany allowed Denmark a semblance of its former sovereignty. Government’s relationship to the war in Europe. On April 9, 1940, Germany’s occupation of Denmark, in conjunction with its invasion of Norway, marked a turning point in the U.S.
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