ARCTIC BLOCKADE MOVE

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 295, 10 September 1941, Page 7

ARCTIC BLOCKADE MOVE

Spitzbergen Landing By Allies COAL DENIED TO ENEMY (British Official Wireless and Press Assn.) Received September 9, 8.10 p.m. LONDON, September 9. An important and successful raid has been carried out by an Allied force on the Norwegian dependency of Spitzbergen in the Arctic Ocean. An announcement by the War Office yesterday stated: “For various purposes it was recently decided to send a military force to the Arctic. In the course of the operations, which were carried out without enemy interference, a landing was effected on Spitzbergen by a mixed Canadian, British and Norwegian force under Canadian command. “The main purpose of the landing was to prevent the enemy from utilizing for'their own war purposes Spitzbergen with its rich coal mines. Previously a proportion of the Spitzbergen coal has been at the, disposal of the population of northern Norway, but it had become known that the enemy’s plan was to seize all the coal available, including that from Spitzbergen, which would be used mainly for war transport to the far north. “This source of fuel has now been denied to the Germans. (

“An immediate result of the Spitzbergen landing,” the announcement adds, “is that a considerable number of Norwegian miners with their families have now arrived in Great Britain to play their part in the Allied war effort. Most of them will be joining the Norwegian forces or the Norwegian merchant service.” The population of the Spitzbergen group of islands was some 3000, and in 1938 its coal output was 626,516 tons. It is learned that the military force evacuated almost the whole of the mining population, numbering between 700 and 1000. This was done to prevent reprisals such as the Germans adopted after the Lofoten raid. Only a few wandering Eskimos and Lapps are left behind. Nazis Seized Coal. The belligerent nations left Spitzbergen alone during the first year of the war, first, because it is so far north, and secondly, because the fact that the Russians possessed a mining concession on the largest island made the Germans hesitate. Thus the Norwegian civil administration in Spitzbergen remained practically independent. For the greater part of the year Spitzbergen is blockaded by ice. The miners who have now arrived in England report that the current export season started a month later than usual. A large stock of coal had been accumulated, because only a few small cargoes went out in June and July. The Germans, while preparing the campaign against Russia, seized all supplies of fuel in Norway, including Spitsbergen's coal, which was needed for the war transports along the Norwegian coast. - . When Germany attacked Russia, Spitzbergen entered the zone of operations, and changes were made in the original export scheme. Only two ships were sent at a time from northern Norway to Spitzbergen, indicating that the Germans feared Allied action and proving that it was their intention to use this Norwegian coal for their own purposes only.

ships that they were told where they were going, and then they cheered lustily. One day out from Spitzbergen the officers were handed their operational orders. It was not known whether Germans were on the island, so plans were prepared for opposed and unopposed landings. The imposing flotilla reached Spitzbergen at 6 a.m., after destroyers and aircraft had reconnoitred ahead. The troops crowded the rails as the ships moved down a long fiord. A lieutenant and some signalmen, armed to the teeth, made the first landing from small boats, with Bren guns in the bows, to take over a wireless station, and the next party ashore took over another wireless station. Norwegians rushed from their shacks to greet them. In Russian Town. After these initial moves the commander and interpreters went ashore for an official landing at a Russian town. A score of stolid Russians, including the town’s officials, surrounded them, and there was no sign of animosity as the troops entered the centre of the community, where they were ceremoniously greeted by a Russian commissar. A British officer passed round Russian cigarettes, and negotiations were rapidly carried out under large pictures of Stalin and other Soviet leaders. Within an hour the Russians and Canadians were fraternizing. The destroyers, trawlers and Russian lighters and motor-boats plied between the ships and the dock bringing ammunition, explosives and supplies ashore. In the meantime a destroyer took a Norwegian detachment and a Canadian landing party to a Norwegian settlement down the fiord, where the Norwegian mayor, representing the Norwegian Government in London, read a proclamation informing the people of the landings. The Norwegians seemed glad to leave Spitsbergen. They held farewell parties and also, on the last night, a dance, when British, Canadian and Norwegian troops danced with Norwegian girls. Next morning hundreds of evacuees boarded a destroyer, which took them to a troopship to sail for Britain. The journey was uneventful.

SPITZBERGEN ISLANDS Rich Mining Territory Spitzbergen, or Svalbard, is SOO miles inside the Arctic Circle, 500 miles from Norway, 700 miles from the Soviet Arctic -port of Murmansk, and 1400 miles from Scotland. It is an archipelago, and is rich not only in coal but also in copper and asbestos. It came under Norwegian ■ sovereignty in. 1920.