Sabre77
Banned
Icelandic soldiers pose with a Bohemian made light machine gun, 1938. The small North Atlantic island had been invaded in April 1938 by the Union of Britain following a months long standoff known as the Cod War. Hit hard by Black Monday the Icelandic government had actively encouraged the country’s fishermen to expand their hunt for fish deeper into the North Atlantic, angering British merchants. A series of confrontations between the Republican Navy and Icelandic fishing trawlers ensued, causing Iceland to request support from Canada. Canadian forces helped the Icelandic people to hold out for several months(which notably saw the torpedoing and sinking of heavy cruiser HMCS Cumberland by English submarine RNS Siren in Reykjavik harbor ) before the English dispatched an invasion force. Troops from the 5th “Birmingham“ and 12th “Edinburgh” divisions landed in the capital, advanced on the Althing, and informed the Icelandic people that they now had no choice but to become a syndicalist country.
Knowing the likely outcome of the Cod War as it escalated, a group of men with previous military service in the Danish armed forces at assembled in a house in Reykjavik several months earlier and, with the assistance of Canadian advisors, began preparations for guerrilla warfare against the English. Naming themselves the ”Army Command Council”— “Herstjórnarráð hersins”—- they set to work establishing the first cells of the Free Icelandic Army—“Ókeypis íslenski herinn”— better known as the OIH. By the time the new syndicalist government was sworn in on May 1, 1938 the OIH had already established more than twenty cells scattered across the island. On June 15, 1938 the OIH launched its first major operation, capturing two hundred brand new Lee Enfield rifles and twenty five thousand rounds of ammunition for them from an English outpost.
For the next five years they would wage a guerrilla war against the English occupiers and their local collaborators, finally ending in triumph when Entente forces liberated Iceland in August 1943.
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