GREENLAND

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 109, 10 May 1941, Page 8

GREENLAND

AIR FERRY VALUE

LANDING PROBLEMS

ACTIVITIES BY GERMANS

(By JAY G. HAYDEX.) WASHINGTON. April 10. Judging by the map, United States occupation of Greenland, decreed by President Roosevelt on Thursday. brings American armed forces some 700 miles closer to direct involvement in the European war. Actually, Administration spokesmen insist, this step, together with transfer of 10 coastguard patrol ships to Great Britain and the impending seizure of idle Danish. Italian and German merchant ships, is designed to avoid the much more dangerous job of convoying American supplies to Britain. The main purpose of the Greenland occupation is to make it available as a landing base for Americanbuilt aeroplanes, flying the Atlantic by way of Newfoundland. Greenland and Iceland. If this retry service can be established successfully it will reduce the longest over-water jump in the crossing to approximately SOO miles, a distance that can be negotiated easily by all types of bombers and by some types of pursuit and training planes. Only the largest American-built bombers arcnow crossing the Atlantic on their own power. Obviously, this development would reduce the demand for aeroplanecarrying ships and diminish the danger of loss of American-built planes through merchant ship sinkings.

Landing Field Difficulties There is some difference ofiopinion as to how effectively Greenland ice can be used for aeroplane landing. Before the outbreak of war Colonel Charles Lindbergh conducted a survey of the Xewfbundland-Greonland-Iceland trans-Atlantic route and came to the conclusion thrt landings in Greenland anel Iceland would prove too difficult to warrant --ending commercial planes that way. Admiral Richard K. Bvrd. after n similar survey in 102~>, harl this to say about the possibilitv of landing aeroplanes in Greenland: ■■Sin.co the shape of the ice cap .-corns to i,e that of the crvstai of a wa'ch it would be difficult to land an aeroplane near its edge without dashing into a crevasse: but .".() to GO miles inland, though a bit rolling, there seems to be flat places where a plane with skis could land." Writing in a recent issue of th" '•National Geographic Magazine" Robert A. Bartlett. who has taken part in more than .'SO explorations of Greenland in the last 13 years said: "The snow-fields oi the ice cap the open land along the- shore and the sheltered fiords provide excellent landing fields for aeroplanes and hideouts for war vessels. If military forces come to Greenland they will find a diverse island, beautiful amazing, difficult, ice-bound, yet a place that might well serve as a year-round base for air operations and in summer for manoeuvres bv sea and land." The British, alreadv occupying Iceland, are known to' believe "that quick establishment of aeroplane landing fields in that country and Greenland is practical, and for some time past they have been urging occupation of Greenland bv American military and naval forces. In a recent statement concerning Greenland the National GeographicSociety said: Germans Active Last Year "Greenland's famous i te can covers the entire interior of this the largest island in the world, it averages a depth of 1000 ft or more. This vast, desolate mass. rising in places to altitudes of 10.000 ft ha< been called the world's biggest iceberg factory, breaking off 'at the fiord line each year into thousands of great bergs. Onlv along the rim of open coast land is human habitation possible. There some IG.OOO Eskimos and a few bundled Danechiefly officials, traders missionaries and teachers, now live." In his statement recently Secretary of State Hull declared that Germany had shown interest in Greenland. "During the summer of ID-JO" nc said. '•German activity on the- eastern coast of Greenland became apparent Three ships proceeding from Norwegian territory, under German occupation, arrived off the coa<t <«•" Greenland, ostensibly for commercial or scientific purposes and' at least one of these ships landed parties. - nominally for scientific purposes, but actually for meteorological assistance to German belligerent operations in the North Atlantic These parties were eventually cleared out. In the late autumn of 1940 air reconnaissance' appeared over F.ast Greenland under circumstances making it plain that there had been continued activity in that region.

-On March 27. inn. a German bomber flew over the eastern coast of Greenland, and on the following day another German war plane like" wise .reconnoitred the same territory. 1 nder these circumstances it appeared that further sVps for ihe defence of Greenland were' necessary to bring Greenland within the system of western hemispheric defence envisaged bv ihe \<-t of Havana."' Air Clash Possibilities The Hull-Kauffman agreement specifically authorise- the Cnrcd States to "construct, maintain and operate landing fields seaplane facilities, and radio and meteoi olocic-- installations in Greenland." Should Gcrmanv attack these American establishments or \m--ri-can-built planes, flying to UiitaL" ?>v way of Greenland, it is apparent that an American-German air cla-h mi'dit result. However, it is pointed out thai Greenland is about l_'on mil-- f>-om Norway, the nearest Gorr-ianc'cu-pied territory. Greenland m f !( -i is much nearer Scotland and C-«ruda than it is to Norway Greenland is 700 miles fivm" ,;•<. tance from the new American ■ ir and naval base in Newfoundland The flying distance from Greenland to Iceland is about <JOO mile- -ov' from Iceland to Scotland C,oo nv'-.'-.-.■' —"Auckland Star" and N -\ X \