Word: reykjavik
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...last lap of the return, the crew of the Prince of Wales knew they would fetch Winston Churchill home unharmed. All the ack-acks aboard raised a jubilant barrage. Five hundred-odd miles north of the northernmost tip of Britain's isles, their precious charge went ashore at Reykjavik, capital of Kentucky-sized Iceland...
Iceland has half a dozen possible airfields, and more could be made on the flat south-coastal plains-if there are planes to put on them. Reykjavik is the only good harbor; though lots of little boats can huddle in the fiords by the herring ports on the north shore...
Last week Winston Churchill said that the British-Canadian forces would not be removed. Presumably the U.S. will soon begin to convoy to Reykjavik. There the British Navy can take over and convoy Lend-Lease goods the rest of the way to Britain. If this takes place it will enable the British to concentrate their convoy vessels on the last leg of the haul. The inevitable result: much lower mortality among British merchantmen, much higher mortality among U-boats. Add to this the fact that Reykjavik can now serve as a base for U.S. naval patrols, particularly air patrols...
Iceland is now nearly treeless. This is not entirely the climate's fault: its coasts, washed by the Gulf Stream, are warmer than the high country of Colorado, and its capital, Reykjavik, has about the same mean annual temperature as New York City. But while the island was a subject of various European nations during the last 1,100 years, its timber was exploited until its hills lay rock-naked as its lava wastes. New forests never grew because, in winter, shepherds would turn out their hungry flocks, which gnawed groves of saplings, preventing the regrowth of natural forests...
Last week three U.S. correspondents boarded a train in London, prepared to take off for Iceland. Halfway to Scotland, the British Military Intelligence hauled them off. Washington, it turned out, had no desire to let newshawks hover over Reykjavik...