Bluie West One: Secret Mission to Greenland, July 1941 — The Building of an American Air Force Base

By William Kray

In 1940 a decision was made between the U.S. and Great Britain to build an air base in Greenland. The mission for the airbase was to patrol the North Atlantic shipping lanes, to protect the cryolite mines at Ivigtut, Greenland, from German occupation. (Cryolite is a flux used in the refining of aluminum—the only known source in the world), and to act as a rescue station for any Allied planes that encountered trouble along the route. This is the story of the building of that airbase—codenamed Bluie West One—by 2nd Lt. William Kray, a member of the 3rd Battalion, 21st Aviation Engineer Regiment, which was tasked with building the base. The trials and tribulations of unloading the ships bringing the supplies and materiel was a mission in itself. The inability to build an unloading dock required a crude but effective improvisation. The problem was sufficiently grave to force the War Department to send a civilian contractor with the proper equipment for the task. The discovery of the misrepresentation of the so-called gravel surface for the initial runway was a further stunning blow. The original survey stated the surface was gravel. They were told just grade it, lay a surface of Pierced Steel Planking (PSP) and they would be home in three months. The magnitude of the problem is difficult to describe. The gravel turned out to be sprinkled with boulders three to twenty feet in diameter. How they combated this problem is a story of untold heartache and depression. In addition, they simultaneously had to build quarters for themselves and the occupying personnel. Other projects were added including building a roadway up the mountain to erect a radar station. They were also ordered to build a radio direction finder station on the island of Simiutak, at the mouth of the fjord. Later they were ordered to build emplacements for 16-inch naval guns ten miles down the fjord at a bend, to protect the base from ships sailing up the fjord. Contents: Preface | Introduction | Greenland Prologue | Greenland | Unloading | First Storm | Psychology of Personnel | Flight to the East Coast | December 7th | Mountain Road | Radio | Work and Life at Bluie West | Final Chapter | 96 6x9-inch pages, 54 photos from author's personal collection.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9781435789272

Book preview

Chapter 1: Greenland Prologue

This mission was born at a secret meeting between President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill at Argentia Bay, Newfoundland, in 1940. Great Britain was taking a severe beating of their convoys on the shipping lanes between the United States and Britain by the German’s submarine campaign. Apparently it was determined that an airbase in Greenland would allow aircraft to patrol over those shipping lanes, helping to protect convoys from the U-boat attacks.

Major Gorlinski, Corp of Engineers, was chosen and given the task of making a survey of Greenland to determine the best location for such an airbase. He consulted whatever technical experts were available in the United States that were the least bit familiar with Greenland. They must have determined that the most expeditious means of such a survey was by flying over the terrain.

Greenland is the largest island in the world, approximately fourteen hundred miles long by about six hundred miles wide. It is enclosed by a range of mountains 11,000 to 12,000 feet high except for the far north portion. Enclosed by these mountains is a pack of solid ice to a depth of 9,000 feet. It is claimed that were this ice to melt it would inundate the North American continent as far west as the Mississippi River. At any rate, Major Gorlinski made his survey by plane at an elevation of approximately 12,000 feet.

The only organization in the U. S. Army partially trained and equipped to perform such a mission was the 21st Aviation Engineer Regiment stationed at Langley Field, Virginia. I was not privy to the following information, so I am only guessing. Someone must have concluded that a battalion of Engineers would be sufficient to complete such a simple task of building a runway for planes to take off, patrol the shipping lanes, and return and land.

I was part of the 3rd Battalion of the 21st Aviation Engineer Regiment. The Battalion was detached from the 21st Regiment and re-designated the 825th Aviation Engineer Battalion. Rumors began circulating that we were going on a secret mission somewhere. No one had any idea where we were supposed to be going. Some rumors said we were taking cotton uniforms, so it must be Africa. Other rumors said we were taking woolen uniforms so it must be the Arctic. Meanwhile, in a deserted area not too far from our base, we practiced grading land, pulling trees, and laying PSP as a surface for runways.

In March 1941 we were alerted that we were going somewhere. In April 1941 all officers were notified to give up their quarters and be prepared to leave at a moment’s notice. We relinquished our quarters at the end of April. My wife refused to leave for home until she was sure I was leaving. As a consequence, all through May my wife and I lived like gypsies. We moved from one friend’s home to another. Finally on June 16, 1941, we were ordered to catch a train for the NYPE (New York Port of Embarkation). Laid over at Fort Slocum, on June 19, 1941, we arrived at the NYPE and were loaded aboard the Navy ship the Munargo (AP-20). As the ship was pulling away from the pier a runner came speeding up, jumped aboard ship, and handed Major Chambers a secret letter from the First Army Headquarters. The Major signed for it and the runner jumped ashore about five feet from the pier. At noon that day we were officially informed that our destination was Greenland. I was then given the secret report of Major Gorlinski, which I studied it very thoroughly.

As I mentioned earlier, the survey was by plane and he discovered a terminal moraine in the southwest of Greenland approximately one and a half miles wide by about three miles long. A beautiful area of gravel, it would be a simple matter of running a drag line to level it, place our PSP, and be home in three months. This is a very brief summarization of his report. His aerial photographs did look like there was a gravel surface.

As we laid to outside the NYPE, we dropped our pilot and were joined by the Army freighter Château Thierry (AP-31), the Navy tanker Sapelo (AO-11), the Coast Guard cutter Comanche (WPG-75), the ice breaker Raritan (WYT-93) and three destroyers. We then headed northeast toward Newfoundland.

We dropped anchor in Argentia Bay, Newfoundland, on June 24, 1941, at 1:21 a.m. This was the site of a new naval base. Two destroyers and the aircraft tender Albemarle were present when we arrived, plus sixteen seaplanes floating in the harbor. Our skipper must have been the senior officer present because the other skippers came aboard to pay their respects. We laid to to obtain weather reports of Greenland and pick up a pilot.

On June 28th the Atlantic Fleet arrived: two battleships, two heavy cruisers, four huge troop transports, a Marine Regiment and a defense battalion, plus adequate supplies and twelve destroyers. The Marines were on a secret mission to Iceland. They had left San Diego on May