Word: reykjavik
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...bluejackets and leathernecks pouring ashore at Reykjavik last week looked over the possibilities of Iceland-as a place to live and a place to defend...
...boys ashore soon found their way to Reykjavik's only cinema and saw Golden Boy. They went to the music halls and saw very proper classical shows. Despite tight restrictions on liquor sales, they managed to find a nip here & there. They wandered into shops and had a fine time trying to make the shopkeepers (who had learned the broad English words of the British) catch onto the American twang...
They buddied up to British soldiers and learned some of the Island's lore. They learned that fire has had more to do with the volcanic island's look than the ice for which it is named. That Reyk means smoke and Reykjavik is "the smoking harbor." That Mount Hekla was considered by medieval Icelandic monks the entrance into Hell. That the poetic Icelanders have named their rocks and rills Waterfall of the Gods and Lava of Evil Deeds and Trembling River...
Early this week Franklin Roosevelt moved the U.S. squarely into the Battle of the Atlantic. In Reykjavik, U.S. naval forces had landed, and Iceland was in hand (see p. 17). From where they were New York was 3,900 miles away, but Norway's Nazi-occupied Bergen was only 1,800 miles, Scotland's port of Glasgow only 1,600 miles, and Berlin a mere 2,800 miles as the bomber flies. The Western Hemisphere had stretched once more. The President had taken another great step...
...State Department, which has devoted a lot of thought to Iceland lately, showed instant signs of appreciation. The State Department announced that a new vice consul was being dispatched to represent the U.S. in Reykjavik. He was tall, blond, coolheaded, young (33) Career Diplomat Henry Bartlett Wells, known as a highly efficient fellow who has turned in excellent reports from all his posts, last of which was at the U.S. Legation in Managua, Nicaragua...