Icelandic Coast Guard

Gösch the Icelandic Coast Guard

The Thor (Þór) - the flagship of the Icelandic Coast Guard since 2011

The origins of the Icelandic Coast Guard ( Landhelgisgæsla Íslands or Landhelgisgæslan ) can be traced back to 1859 when the corvette Ørnen began patrolling Icelandic waters. In 1906 the first specially built patrol boat Iceland Falk came to Iceland. The defense of its own territory at sea began around 1920. The Icelandic Coast Guard was officially established on July 1, 1926. The Icelandic Coast Guard played a decisive role during the cod wars with England and other European fishing nations between 1958 and 1975 for fishing rights in the waters around Iceland.

Coastal security problem

For years Iceland had enlarged the fishing zones around the island and, as a NATO member , had them monitored by the United States . In 2006 the Keflavík base was closed after the Americans withdrew from Iceland. With the withdrawal of the Americans, the country itself is responsible for securing the coast, which poses major problems for Iceland because the Landhelgisgæslan has few forces. Most recently, the independent 85th Group formed the Iceland Defense Force (IDF) as part of the United States European Command and was under the command of USAF Colonel Philip Gibbons. He was subordinate to seven squadrons with around 700 American and more than 700 Icelandic civilian employees. The powerful component of the 85th Operations Squadron with McDonnell Douglas F-15 , F-18 , Lockheed HC-130 , Orion and Boeing KC-135 could not be replaced equally. The tasks of the 56th American Rescue Squadron with air-refueling Sikorsky HH-60G Pavehawk helicopters, which until then had been permanently stationed in the North Atlantic to fly rescue (SAR) and combat rescue missions (CSAR), has since been taken over by Landhelgisgæslan.

History and equipment

TF-LIF helicopter, an Aérospatiale AS 332 Super Puma

1954 Landhelgisgæslan took an earlier flight boat of the United States Navy , a Consolidated PBY -6A Catalina, the 1962 by one with radar -equipped and searchlights 54 carbon Douglas Skymaster was replaced. From 1969 onwards, two Grumman HU-16 C Albatros flying boats did their jobs. An earlier Fokker F- 27-200 from All Nippon Airways replaced this in 1972, before the brand-new TF-SYN monitoring machine of the same Fokker type was purchased in 1976 . The first two helicopters Aérospatiale AS 350B Ecureuil (TF-GRO) and AS 365N Dauphin (TF-SIF) followed in 1985 and 1986 . In 1995 another Aérospatiale AS 332L2 Super Puma was procured. The arsenal currently includes three armed coast guard boats of the 1,100 ton class with a flight deck and hangar, as well as a guard boat with 54 GRT . Iceland currently needs three helicopters of the Super Puma class, which are to be procured via regular tenders in the next few years. In the meantime, two chartered or leased planes are to fill the gap left by the Americans. For this purpose, the green light has already been given for doubling the staff of the “Air Wing” of the Icelandic coast guard. Despite complicated weather conditions, flights are always flown when human lives are in danger and, in the absence of other rescue organizations, also in car or snowmobile accidents on roads and ice glaciers. External load flights are also part of the routine of the helicopter pilots, just like the winching of moving ships.

tasks

The most important task, however, is the protection of the fishing borders. So had z. In mid-June 2006, for example, the Landhelgisgæslan, with the help of a reconnaissance helicopter and a boarding crew, landed a trawler from the Faroe Islands that was catching in the Icelandic fishing zone.

Officers

Well-known Icelandic Coast Guard officers who excelled in defending the Icelandic Exclusive Economic Zone from British invasion during the Cod Wars include Helgi Hallvarðsson , Pétur Sigurðsson (who developed the net-cutting technique) and Eiríkur Kristófersson .

Icelandic Coast Guard ships

The Óðinn is now part of the Reykjavik Maritime Museum and can be visited on guided tours.

Web links

Commons : Icelandic Coast Guard - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Landhelgisgæsla Íslands website (Icelandic).

Individual evidence

↑ Helgi Máni Sigurðsson: Varðskipið Óðinn: björgun og barátta í 50 ár: greinar og viðtöl . Víkin Sjóminjasafnið í Reykjavík, Reykjavík 2010, ISBN 978-9979-70-856-8 .
↑ UTD_Vefumsjon: Óðinn Coast Guard Vessel. September 21, 2015, accessed November 29, 2018 (is-IS).

[1] Helgi Máni Sigurðsson: Varðskipið Óðinn: björgun og barátta í 50 ár: greinar og viðtöl . Víkin Sjóminjasafnið í Reykjavík, Reykjavík 2010, ISBN 978-9979-70-856-8 .

[2] UTD_Vefumsjon: Óðinn Coast Guard Vessel. September 21, 2015, accessed November 29, 2018 (is-IS).