The Icelandic Base Command (IBC) is an inactive United States Army organization. It was established for the United States defense of the Danish Colony of Iceland duringWorld War II. It was inactivated on 4 March 1947.
Early in World War II both the British and the Germans had recognized what the Vikings had demonstrated ten centuries before, namely, that Iceland was an important steppingstone between Europe and the New World in North America. Hitler several times toyed with the idea of a descent upon the island and laid preliminary plans for it; but to forestall such a move British troops, soon joined by a Canadian force, had landed in Iceland on 10 May 1940. Icelandic annoyance with the British and Canadian garrison, and British losses in the war, which made a withdrawal of the Iceland garrison seem desirable, plus the United States concern for the Atlantic sea lanes, combined to bring Iceland within the American defense orbit.
In 1941, weakened by the withdrawal of some 50,000 troops in Greece and surprised by greatly reinforced German and Italian forces, Britain's Army of the Nile had been driven back, with serious losses, across the African deserts to the Egyptian border. Disaster in Greece, following hard upon the rout in North Africa, added 11,000 dead and missing to the casualties of the African campaign. The British therefore felt a pressing need for the 20,000 or so troops tied down in Iceland.
Iceland, no less than Britain, was anxious to have the British garrison depart. Intensely nationalistic, proud of their ancient civilization, the Icelanders chafed under the "protective custody" in which they found themselves placed. They felt at first, when Canadian troops made up a large part of the total force, that a wholly British contingent would be preferable, but when the Canadians were later replaced by British troops most Icelanders seemed to find their lot no more bearable than before. As the scope of Germany's aerial blitzkrieg widened, the people of Iceland grew more uneasy; for it to be "defended" by one of the belligerent powers, they felt, was an open invitation to attack by the other. The Icelandic Government shared the apprehensions of the people and found further annoyance in Britain's control of Iceland's export trade.
The Icelandic Government had, as early as mid-July 1940, approached the United Department of State concerning the possibility of Iceland's coming under the aegis of the Monroe Doctrine. Unwilling to make a definite decision until circumstances required it, the Department of State pointed to the necessity of not tying its hands with prior commitments. Then came the British reverses in the Mediterranean and increasing German success in the North Atlantic. On 10 April 1941, while picking up survivors from a Dutch vessel torpedoed off the coast of Iceland, the American destroyer Niblach, which earlier in the month had been given the job of reconnoitering the waters about the island, went into action against a U-boat whose approach was taken as an intention to attack. This was the first of a number of "incidents" that were to take place in the waters south of Iceland, where from this time forward the safety zone of the Western Hemisphere and Germany's blockade area overlapped. On 13 April President Roosevelt received assurances from Prime Minister Churchill that Britain was determined to fight through to a decision in North Africa. American goods and munitions would perhaps be the deciding factor in the campaign.
Preparations for sending an Army survey party were made. Discussions between General Chaney's staff and British officers had begun on 4 June on such matters as housing the American troops, the antiaircraft defense of Iceland, and the necessary fighter plane strength; and it was decided that a joint Admiralty, Air, and War Ministry committee would collaborate with the Special Observer Group in planning the relief of the British forces. The War Department began its preliminary planning at once. Since only a meager body of firsthand data was available, the point of departure had to be the decision itself (that American troops would immediately and completely relieve the British garrison) and from that point planning had to proceed on the basis of the two known factors: that approximately 30,000 troops would be required.
An agreement with the Government of Denmark was concluded on 7 July 1941 for the United States to relieve the British and Canadian forces on Iceland. Plans were made and on 5 September 1941, a convoy got under way for the movement of American Army troops to Iceland. Guarded through coastal waters by vessels of the First and Third Naval Districts, the transports and accompanying freighters on the following day picked up their ocean escort and destroyer screen at a meeting point off the coast of Maine. Four days later, during the night of 15–16 September, the convoy reached Iceland safely.
United States Army
As outposts of defense, the North Atlantic bases were only imperceptibly affected by the entry of the United States into the war in December 1941. More than two months before, instructions had gone out to the American garrisons to dispute actively the approach of any Axis military plane or naval vessel. Iceland had gone on the alert even earlier. The ultimate decision that would bring into action the guns of the American garrisons had thus rested with Hitler and on his view of what was expedient. It had not depended on America's status, whether of belligerency, nonbelligerency, or neutrality. In recognition of these circumstances, reinforcements had been dispatched to the Atlantic outposts throughout most of 1941.
This is not to say that the bases in the Atlantic escaped, even for a time, the hard impact of war. The affirmation in the ARCADIA Conference (the Anglo-American conference in Washington, December 1941-January 1942) of the strategy of concentrating an American air force in the United Kingdom acted as a catalyst on the hitherto uncertain and somewhat nebulous proposals that the United States take over the North Atlantic air route-the shortest path between America and the European front. As way stations on this route both Greenland and Iceland now acquired a new importance, in which Newfoundland, as one of the terminal points, shared.
The United States Forces remained directly under General Headquarters, United States Army until 16 June 1942 when the Icelandic Defense Command was established. IDF was placed under the jurisdiction of the CG ETOUSA for training and operations. At the same time, it remained under the War Department for administrative purposes and continued to be supplied by the United States Navy and United States Army Air Forces.
In March 1943, the commanding general, Iceland Base Command was charged with the defense of the territory of Iceland under his control and the training of units under his command in accord with directives issued by the commanding general, European Theater of Operations, United States Army (ETOUSA). In addition he was to comply with whatever special and specific instructions the CG ETOUSA might from time to time direct. Defense and training remained the primary mission o the command after its removal from ETOUSA Control.
Of the four outposts in the North Atlantic, Iceland alone presented a major, immediate problem. The reinforcement of Newfoundland and Bermuda would require the transportation of comparatively small numbers and the distances were not great. Greenland would be frozen in until spring. Furthermore, early plans and prior commitments and the desire of the British to transfer their garrison gave Iceland a special position in the tug of European strategy
After the arrival of the December troop convoy a battalion of marines had taken over the positions of one of the British infantry battalions, which was immediately returned to the United Kingdom. Then the 2d Battalion, 10th Infantry, which arrived in the January convoy, took over from the marine battalion and it returned to the United States. No troops arrived in February. In March a small British force and the last remaining units of the marine brigade departed upon the arrival of the 2d Infantry (minus one battalion) and accompanying units. A large American convoy arrived in mid-April and another in May with a total of about 8,700 troops, and this enabled most of the remaining British troops to be withdrawn. After 11 May only the British 146 Infantry Brigade, distributed among the three outports of Akureyri, Seydhisfjrdhur, and Bdhareyri, and some Royal Air Force units remained. The better part of the job the United States had undertaken twelve months before was accomplished. There were now, at the beginning of June 1942, about 24,000 American troops in Iceland; but in the meantime Iceland's defense requirements had risen. The building of the Keflavk airfields, air ferrying activity, and troop transport operations over the sea lanes, and the fact that the United States had become one of the belligerents all meant that the size of the garrison had to be revised upward. Shortly after Iceland's inclusion in June in the new European Theater of Operations, large additions to the American forces arrived in July, August, October, and December, so that by the end of 1942 the garrison in Iceland had grown to approximately 38,000 men stationed at nearly 300 camps and posts.
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