The British Occupation of Iceland

About the Book

It became increasingly clear during word War II that eh Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) were aiming at world domination. The Nazis had occupied a swathe of Europe from Norway and Denmark to Greece, the Italians had invaded Ethiopia (Formerly known as Abyssinia), and the Japanese had attacked the USA Fleet in Pearl Harbor, an event that brought America into the war.

The invasion of Norway by he Germans in 1940 exposed the shipping in the North Atlantic to even greater dangers from U-Boats. Iceland held a key position in these waters, and, if occupied by the Germans, would have provided bases from which German warships could have dominated the North Atlantic. It was known that Germany had been wooing Iceland for several years. Iceland, therefore, had to be denied to the Germans. The country had neither army, navy, nor air force and was, by constitution, pledged to neutrality. Its Parliament, the Althing, confident that its neutrality would be respected, rejected the British Government’s offer of protection. The British, however, believed that this was too great a risk to contemplate, and the Government therefore ordered the invasion and occupation of Iceland. It is worth recording that the British troops, who cam as enemies, left as friends.

The author, a sergeant in the Intelligence Corps, spent a year as part of the occupying force. The book describes his experience and includes extracts from the Icelandic press relating to the British troops.

About the Author

The Author, Philip A. Coggin, was born in Forest Hill, London; in 1917 and attended St Dunstan's College, Catford (1928_1936) where he was Senior Victor Ludorum for three successive years. In 1935 he wan a traveling scholarship to spend three months in France. In 1936 he entered Oriel College, Oxford, and took an Honours Degree in French and German in 1939. In September 1939, he volunteered to join the Army and was drafted in to the Intelligence Corps and almost immediately sent to France as yet unoccupied by the Germans. There he worked among the civilian population supervising security and gathering information about morale and covert enemy activity. After contracting Jaundice in April 1940, he was evacuated to England and sent to a military hospital in Lancashire. On recovery, he joined an Intelligence Unit on Liverpool Docks checking incoming and outgoing ships and passengers. While there, he worked with, and fell in love with, Miss Jerry McDonnell, a member of the Censorship Department of the Ministry of Information who was engaged in censoring the documents of passengers passing in and out of Liverpool. They were married in 1941 and have tow sons. At the same time, he was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the South Staffordshire Regiment and served as Assistant Adjutant and Intelligence Officer when the regiment was posted to Northern Ireland where he was accompanied by his wife. After contracting kidney trouble, he was transferred to St Peter‰*ªs Hospital in London where his left kidney was removed and he was declared unfit for further military service; He then returned to Oxford and took a Diploma in Education. After completing this in 1944, he taught modern Languages at St Bees School, Cumbria followed by the headship of the Modern Languages Department at Plymouth College. He then became headmaster of the white House Grammar School, Brampton, Cumbria, before his appointment as first Headmaster of transformation into a Senior Comprehensive School (ages 14to 18). After pioneering City and Guilds courses in schools, he lectured widely throughout the U.K. at conferences organized by the Ministry of Education.

He was Vice-President of the Wiltshire Samaritans and a committee member of V.S.O. In 1970 he was awarded a Winston Churchill Traveling Fellowship which enabled him, traveling by car and caravan accompanied by his wife, to visit schools in sixteen European countries. In the same year he was awarded and OBE for services to education. After his retirement in 1980, he lived for four years in Australia where his younger son has a dental practice. On his return to England, he settled with his wife in Broadstairs where he still lives. His wife died in 2005.