Iceland Base Command

Iceland Base Command
Emblem of the Iceland Base Command
Active	July 1941 – March 1947
Country	United States
Branch	United States Army

The Icelandic Base Command (IBC) is an inactive United States Army organization. It was established for the United States defense of the Kingdom of Iceland during World War II. It was inactivated on 4 March 1947.

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 States 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.