The Cod Wars

Summary

Dan Snow's History Hit: The Cod Wars Episode Release Date: December 16, 2024

Host: Dan Snow
Guest: Will Reynolds, Lecturer in Defence Studies at King's College London

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1. Introduction to the Cod Wars

Historian Dan Snow delves into one of the most unconventional conflicts in modern history: the Cod Wars between Britain and Iceland. Unlike typical wars driven by ideological or territorial disputes, the Cod Wars were sparked by disagreements over fishing rights in the North Atlantic, highlighting how vital natural resources can lead to intense international tensions.

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2. Historical Context and Background

Dan Snow [04:41]:
"I have a strange fascination with some of the more bizarre conflicts in the long and lamentable catalog of human conflict... the Cod Wars."

Will Reynolds provides a foundation, explaining that while conflicts over fishing are not new, the Cod Wars of the mid-20th century brought these disputes to an unprecedented level of intensity. The disagreements primarily revolved around the expansion of Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs), which determine the area from which a nation can exploit marine resources.

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3. The Anatomy of the Cod Wars

Defining the Cod Wars: The Cod Wars comprised three main confrontations between Britain and Iceland:

1. First Cod War (1958-1961): Iceland sought to extend its fishing limits from 3 to 12 nautical miles.
2. Second Cod War (1972-1973): Further extension to 50 nautical miles.
3. Third Cod War (1975-1976): Push towards the current 200 nautical miles EEZ.

Will Reynolds [06:18]:
"The idea of fish being a tension point between nations is not relegated to the 20th century... primarily men would go out for months, essentially, and do these things."

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4. The First Cod War (1958-1961)

Iceland's attempt to extend its fishing zone led to immediate friction. British trawlers, vital to the economies of coastal British cities like Hull and Grimsby, resisted these changes.

Notable Incident:

• The Northern Foam [10:01]: A British trawler defied Icelandic boundaries, leading to violent confrontations. A crew member threatened aggressive actions against Icelandic coast guard vessels.

Will Reynolds [13:19]:
"It's incredibly difficult to arrest a vessel at sea... you have to achieve some sort of dominance."

The Royal Navy struggled to manage the situation without escalating the conflict into broader geopolitical tensions, especially considering NATO alliances.

Conclusion of the First Cod War: An agreement was reached, mediated by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), establishing quotas and monitored fishing areas. However, Iceland viewed the agreement as compromised, setting the stage for future conflicts.

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5. The Second Cod War (1972-1973)

With economic pressures mounting, Iceland pushed for a 50 nautical mile limit. The British government faced a dilemma: uphold international fishing rights or protect the livelihoods of thousands of trawler workers.

Economic Stakes:

• Iceland: 86% of exports were fish-related. A decline in fish stocks threatened the nation's GDP and survival.
• Britain: Massive unemployment loomed if trawler operations were curtailed.

Notable Innovations:

• Warp Cutters [26:00]: Icelandic forces developed tools to disable British trawlers by cutting their warp lines, significantly reducing their productivity.

Will Reynolds [27:14]:
"There is a memorial for him, but it just highlights that there was a death, it was a conflict, it was just a very strange one."

Outcome: The Second Cod War concluded with Iceland effectively enforcing the 50-mile limit, despite increased tensions and violent encounters at sea.

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6. The Third Cod War (1975-1976)

Iceland's relentless pursuit for a 200 nautical mile EEZ brought the conflict to its zenith. The British, now grappling with declining naval dominance and economic strains from the oil crisis, found themselves cornered.

Escalation Tactics:

• Ramming and Weaponry [35:50]: Both nations employed increasingly aggressive maneuvers. Icelandic vessels, though primarily unarmed, resorted to ramming, while British frigates developed unconventional tactics, including the use of railway spikes to disable Icelandic ships.

Notable Incident:

• Live Fire Engagement [27:14]: In a rare escalation, Icelandic Coast Guard fired solid shot at a British tugboat, leading to fatalities and highlighting the conflict's deadly potential.

Geopolitical Implications: The Cod Wars threatened the unity of NATO, with Iceland positioning itself as a pivotal member controlling vital maritime routes essential for Soviet submarine movements.

Will Reynolds [36:01]:
"They are highly sophisticated, a lot of them. Anti surface warfare vessels, anti submarine warfare vessels as well."

Resolution: Exhausted by the prolonged conflict and recognizing the unsustainable costs, Britain conceded to Iceland's demands. The establishment of the 200 nautical mile EEZ was acknowledged, solidifying modern maritime boundaries.

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7. Aftermath and Implications

Economic Impact:

• Britain: The deep-sea trawling industry never fully recovered, leading to lasting economic repercussions for fishing communities.
• Iceland: Secured vital fish stocks, ensuring economic stability and reinforcing national sovereignty.

Geopolitical Lessons: The Cod Wars underscored the complexities of maritime law, resource-based conflicts, and the challenges small nations face against larger powers within international alliances.

Will Reynolds [43:30]:
"The Icelanders played a blinder of a game geopolitically... the UK do lose, but they lose with some compromises instead of an unconditional surrender."

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8. Conclusion

The Cod Wars remain a testament to how resource scarcity and national survival can drive nations to extraordinary lengths. While they may seem trivial compared to global conflicts, the Cod Wars had profound implications for international maritime law, national economies, and geopolitical alliances.

Dan Snow [44:34]:
"Exactly. The Imperial Empire of Iceland."

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Notable Quotes:

• Will Reynolds [10:30]:
  "The five Ps were power, pressure, principle, precedent, and prestige. The Cs were code of law, Cold War, cynicism, conservation, commitment, and compassion."

• Will Reynolds [13:19]:
  "It's incredibly difficult to arrest a vessel at sea... you have to achieve some sort of dominance."

• Dan Snow [26:07]:
  "Yes, it's the coolest thing ever." (Note: This appears amidst an advertisement and may not pertain directly to the Cod Wars discussion.)

• Will Reynolds [27:14]:
  "There is a memorial for him, but it just highlights that there was a death, it was a conflict, it was just a very strange one."

• Will Reynolds [36:01]:
  "They are highly sophisticated, a lot of them. Anti surface warfare vessels, anti submarine warfare vessels as well."

• Will Reynolds [43:30]:
  "The Icelanders played a blinder of a game geopolitically... the UK do lose, but they lose with some compromises instead of an unconditional surrender."

---

Final Thoughts:
The Cod Wars illustrate the intricate dance between national interests, economic survival, and international diplomacy. Through the lens of this peculiar yet impactful conflict, listeners gain insights into the broader themes of power dynamics, resource management, and the lengths nations will go to protect their sovereignty.

Transcript

[Dan Snow]

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[Dan Snow]

Hi everybody. Welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. I have a strange fascination with some of the more bizarre conflicts in the long and lamentable catalog of human conflict. There are certain episodes amidst the horror and the tragedy that do raise a little bit of an eyebrow, maybe even a smile at the bizarre conflicts. Whether it's the soccer war in Central America ignited by a World cup qualifying soccer match, the Great emu War of 1932, when the Australian government undertook a military operation against large flightless birds. The Anglo Zanzibar War was a very real war, a shooting war. It lasted about 45 minutes, though, so it was quite short. Then there's the War of Jenkins Ear, which was a proper war, a terrible war, a war that spanned continents, but does have that extraordinary title, a conflict between Britain and Spain that seems to have been started because a Spanish coast guard chopped off the earth of Captain Jenkins. Although some accounts suggest it could have been an even more precious body part. Top of the list of all the bizarrely named conflicts that I've come across. Well, it has to be the Cod Wars. When Britain and Iceland exchanged blows. Yes, there was violence over fish. It wasn't strictly speaking of war, but as you'll hear in this podcast, it's a pretty fine distinction. There was conflict. There was physical conflict. It's a wild piece of history. It involves extraordinary cat and mouse chases between hardy British trawlermen and their equally unwavering Icelandic pursuers. It sucked in Royal Naval vessels, Icelandic Coast Guard ramming ships. Crews tried to board each other. There was even live fire at certain points. Serious numbers of Royal Navy ships were damaged. This was a big deal. And it was an even bigger deal, in fact, because although it sounds ludicrous, this head to head came to threaten the stability, the integrity of NATO itself. Right at the height of the Cold War. This British Icelandic spat threatened the security, the unity of Europe and Iceland. In fact, at one point said it was going to trigger Article 5 as the result of British incursions into Icelandic waters. It's an overlooked. It's a fascinating piece of history and it was all very, very, very recent. Joining me on the podcast today is Will Reynolds. He's a lecturer in Defence Studies at King's College London. He's teaching at the UK Joint Services Command and Staff College. He is a great historian and communicator. He's going to tell us all about the Cod wars. Enjoy.

[Will Reynolds]

T minus 10 atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. God save the King.

[Unknown]

No black white unity till there is first some black unity.

[Will Reynolds]

Never to go to war with one another again.

[Unknown]

And liftoff.

[Will Reynolds]

And the shuttle has cleared the tow.

[Dan Snow]

Will, thank you very much for coming on the podcast.

[Will Reynolds]

Thank you for having me.

[Dan Snow]

Before we get into the 20th century, battles over fish. Obviously, Britain and the US occupied Iceland during the Second World War, but before then, was this a touch point between Britain and her northern neighbor?

[Will Reynolds]

So I can't speak for medieval or Renaissance, I'm afraid. I'm sure there are eminently more qualified historians who could help you out on that front. The idea of fish being a tension point between nations is not relegated to the 20th century. It is definitely something that's quite perennial, predominantly because this is deep sea fishing. This isn't fish that's near British coastlines. These are fish that are closest to the Icelanders, the trawler men. And it was predominantly men would go out for months, essentially, and do these things and then come back rather than sort of Go in and out, as you'd expect from a normal fishing of stereotype. So it would become quite controversial in terms of the relationship, though I think the relationship between Denmark and Iceland was a bit more tense because of that colonial relationship. And the UK side of it only really starts to factor because of the occupation in the Second World War. And the British weren't viewed, shall we say, as positively as, say, the Americans, who the Americans were around as well. But for the British, because Britain was an empire, you get tainted with that stereotype as well.

[Dan Snow]

So what are the rules on fishing, or what rules does the Icelandic government try and impose? Is there an exclusion zone? Is there an area around Iceland the government tried to reserve for its own fishermen?

[Will Reynolds]

So it's a very strange period of time because the rules of the road for the sea were in flux at this point. What you would recognize today and that you can see coming up in the South China Sea or East China Sea or various other areas, it comes under something called the. The United Nations Convention of Law on the sea, or UNCLOS. And that wasn't ratified or fully solidified until the 90s. There were various meetings, big UN meetings about it. You'll sometimes see references to things called UNCLOS 2 or UNKLOS 3. Those are basically the meetings trying to set out what the rules of the road are. But going into 1945, 46. So just post war, the basic rule is you get three nautical miles of territory from your coastline, and that is also coincidentally, the range of your average cannon. So it was that idea of you can defend and enact force on this area of coastline, therefore it's yours. And the rest is classified as high seas. And there's various laws associated with high seas, but there isn't any sort of exclusivity applied to it in terms of fishing. So for cod war, the cod wars, and there were three, the Icelanders will say there are four, so four or three, depending on where you sit. But from the British perspective, there were three. One starts in 1958 and they finished in 61, another in 72 to 73, and another in 75 to 76. And each one is the Icelanders trying to push out a zone of exclusivity for rights of fishing in tandem. So the first one was to go from three nautical miles to, I think, 12 nautical miles. The second one was to go from 12 to 50, and the third one was to go from 50 to 200, and 200 is the one we recognize today as the exclusive economic zone. So in today's laws. You have 12, which is your territorial waters, you have 24, which is your contiguous zone, and then you have 200, which is your exclusive economic zone. Now, there's various rules and caveats to that, but that's the basics. We don't need to get into maritime law and bore your listeners on that one. But that was kind of where the Icelanders were going. So up until the first Cod War, there were no rules associated with that. So the Icelanders were trying to implement new norms in this regard.

[Dan Snow]

Okay. And that's why through the 19th century, as the populations soared, the Brits were looking for fish, everyone was looking for fish. And there are sort of standoffs through the 1890s. And there's the old gunboat going alongside trawlers and it's all a bit messy. In 58, things really come to a head. Tell me we talk about cod wars. I mean, it's an extraordinary phrase. Who would initiate the action? Would it be British trawlers entering, entering this territory claimed or this seascape, this maritime territory claimed by the Icelanders?

[Will Reynolds]

So it's sort of a mixture of things. I should say that it's not the only war named after a aquatic creature. You've got the Lobster and Trout wars as well. Lobster wars between France and Brazil, around the same time period, actually. And the Trout wars were in the 90s between Canada and the EU. And these involved navies. I mean, the Lobster war involved a flying fortress. So. But with these wars, these conflicts, you have to understand the stakes that were involved for these competing nations. And the stakes were almost entirely existential for the Icelanders in their perception, whereas for the UK it was far less of a concern. So there's this academic called Gundy Johannesson, who coincidentally was one of Iceland's most popular presidents for decades. He's just left office, I think, in the last half a decade or so. But he is the quintessential Cod wars academic.

[Dan Snow]

In my experience. In my experience in Iceland, people often do job shares. There's not many people and there's lots of jobs to. So you get kind of thermal engineer who is also designs the currency or something, you know, that seems to be quite normal.

[Will Reynolds]

Yeah. It's controversial in that he tried to outlaw pineapple on pizza. So a controversial individual, but very popular and would be my go to for this. He very helpfully divided the reasons into like five Ps for the UK and six Cs for Iceland. And the five Ps were power, pressure, principle, precedent and prestige. And we can go into that later, if you like. And the Cs were code of law, Cold War, cynicism, conservation, commitment and compassion.

[Dan Snow]

Surely you missed a bit of a trick there. Surely One of the Cs should be COD, shouldn't it?

[Will Reynolds]

Well, yes, yes. I was very angry when I was writing a paper on this that someone had already claimed the title Fish and Ships. That was a slam dunk and someone stolen it. I think Codfather might have been a good one as well. But you don't, you know, you get all these various titles and names with this conflict on the sea. It was the trawlermen that was start. Well, the trawlermen were fishing where they always were. And these are trawler folk from Hull and Grimsby, predominantly. These were massive trawling fleets, probably the largest in the world combined by 58. The problem was, by 58 they weren't paying their way anymore, so the government was subsidizing them to keep them running. So what the British government was worried about with regards to this was huge mass local unemployment. If you cut this out, you lose the main economy of these two big cities and it just drags everything down. But the Icelanders were worried because 86% of their exports were fish. And whilst it didn't happen with the cod, when haddock disappeared in the mid-60s and Iceland's GDP per capita dropped by 16%, that's how existential it was for them. And this is a population of 200,000. The population of Iceland is smaller than the population of Hull. But they really did care about this. And so when the Icelanders put out these zones and the trawler folk refused to leave and the UK didn't recognize this as legal, that's where the clashes would occur. So the first one was a trawler called the Northern Foam. And what happened there, and it got quite violent. No violence in terms of injury, but in terms of rhetoric, I think one of the crewmen of the Foam sort of locked themselves in the engine room and said that he on the radio, he's got an ax and he's going to cut any of their hands off that come in. And so the Royal Navy were trying to de escalate this situation whilst the Icelanders were trying to escalate it. And that caused a backlash. And basically what happens is things that happen at sea caused disproportionate effects at home, where the public would read up on this and the governments would get carried away with the sentiment and they would lose control. Essentially, the Icelandic government at one point Basically lost control of its coast guard in terms of things being done at sea and had to go along with it. And the British, the Royal Navy was much better, of course, it was more structured. But the British lost control of the trawlermen who went out there to go and try and enforce what their rights were for, their perceived rights. And the navy had to go out and protect them because otherwise, if they let the Icelanders arrest them or take them away, it was seen as a de facto recognition of these new laws. So it's a very weird dynamic where governments start these things, but then the dynamics that occur at sea start a life of their own and sort of runs away with it. No one is able to control the escalation.

[Dan Snow]

How do you arrest a vessel at sea?

[Will Reynolds]

It's incredibly difficult because the North Sea is not. I don't know if you ever been on the North Sea. It's not a pleasant place to live or work. And it's very difficult in this period, 50s, 60s and 70s to rock up alongside a boat and then get people on board without being resisted and arresting the crew. It's incredibly difficult because a, the crew are resisting. And you had excellent inventions like potato guns against the Icelandic Coast Guard, who felt quite difficult to do so.

[Dan Snow]

Again, like potato guns. What's that?

[Will Reynolds]

Yes. So like high powered pressure, not an actual firearm, but a sort of. Suppose a tube that fires pressure of a potato goes out. You know it's going to hurt if it hits you. But on the North Sea, when you're trying to get on board, if you go into the water, it does become lethal because of the temperature, because of how difficult it is to get a man back on board. So these things are quite lethal. And when Icelanders were trying to get onto these ships, if they're resisting, you can't really get on board. So you have to achieve some sort of dominance, get your people on board and then tow it away, which is very difficult when the Royal Navy are lurking in the background and they are using themselves to get in between the two targets that the Coast Guard vessel and the target and push them away, essentially. Not physically, but that did occur at points. But just using your presence to sort of push the individuals away so you can't do anything. But it did get very violent in terms of how the ships interacted with each other. So ramming is obviously very common. I'm sure you've seen photos of of Royal Navy frigates coming back into port with giant holes in the sides of them, because a Coast Guard vessel has slammed into it or they've slammed into a Coast Guard vessel by accident, reportedly. But when you look at a captain's log book and it says we were going 30 knots and then 0 knots, that didn't seem like they were slowing down when they went into each other. So whether it's by accident or not is a technical question, shall we say. And I think many captains recognised that they had been given informal orders to be a bit more muscular in certain areas than was technically legal at sea.

[Dan Snow]

And let's remember, I stand at Coast Guard and the Royal Navy. These are two NATO countries. These two NATO powers who are, well, coming to blows, crashing into each other, ramming each other in the North Atlantic, in the North Sea. It's crazy.

[Will Reynolds]

And some very creative ways of doing it as well. So only the Icelanders ever fired their weapons, and never high explosive, usually solid shot. There was a battle that occurred, I think, in the third Cod War, when some trawlers were trying to escape from a zone they shouldn't have been in. And it got violent enough that the Icelanders fired. Because it wasn't just the Royal Navy. The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisher and Food had hired six tugs to act as civil defence tugs. So these were civil service crew and I suppose in many ways similar to the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, but they weren't within the military apparatus. They were a separate thing. And these tugs were not armed, they were deep sea tugs. So they were far more able to be a bit boisterous with the Coast Guard vessels, because if you look at Royal Navy ships, they're quite thin in terms of steel on the sides of them. Because they're designed for seakeeping, they're not expecting to ram each other. Whereas tugs are expected to.

[Dan Snow]

No, that's absolutely not the design. No, in the design envelope, yeah, that's okay.

[Will Reynolds]

You have a Leander class frigate which is playing keep away with an Icelandic Coast Guard vessel. The Icelandic Coast Guard vessel, if they hit each other, will tend to win because it's a tug. And one of the vessels the Icelanders hired and then crewed was called the Baldur, which was a whaler. And everyone was terrified of this thing because it had very sharp corners. And if it hit a Royal Navy frigate, it was going to cause a lot of damage. So they used to use a tug called the Lloydsman, which was very big, and it was considered the only one which could really go mano a mano with this Baldur. And they both sort of kept each other at arm's length. But if the Baldur had crashed and it did regulate. You can see photos of HMS Y armour for Juno, which are both Leander class frigates coming into port and they've got massive holes in them because a Coast guard vessel has accidentally or maybe accidentally slammed into it and is torn apart the steel. Which is why you see those tires along the side of them. The tires are designed to try and provide some rubber so if it hits each other it doesn't cause as much damage as it was supposed to.

[Dan Snow]

Well, Baldur is the son of Odin in Viking mythology, isn't he? Brother of Thor. And I think he basically the name sort of means brave or defiant. So that that tug was very cleverly.

[Will Reynolds]

Named Odin and Thor, also two coast guard ships.

[Dan Snow]

So there you go, that's a more practical, more practical incarnation. How did the first COD war come to an end?

[Will Reynolds]

It came to an end in the same way that it usually does. The British, they don't capitulate. So we always. The joke is Iceland wins every single time. And it does technically. But the capitulations highlight that the Brits had far more control over when to go into a to use force and when to leave, whereas the Icelanders couldn't. The Icelandic government had to win, otherwise they would electorally be wiped out. The governments are in charge. And so in 61 an agreement is set out where quotas are put in place and the Brits trawlers can use certain areas but they have to be monitored. The numbers are closely monitored as well. And this is all underpinned by the icj. So the International Court of Justice, which is kind of the court which looks at all UN international rulings. And the agreement was that this was in place and the ICJ would underpin it. And both nations, Iceland and Britain and Germany actually people forget West Germany was part of this, but they didn't really get involved in force. It was mainly the Brits. But in the international agreement West Germany was involved and that agreement was put in place. The issue was as we'll probably come up to the Icelanders 10ish years down the line. This agreement was forced upon us by a colonial oppressor. We render it null and void and the ICJ had no power to enforce it. Which highlights some of the issues with international rulings that if the countries aren't willing to follow it, it becomes quite difficult to enforce those laws. Which obviously has loads of comparisons with today's day and age.

[Dan Snow]

Interesting. So Iceland win but then renege.

[Will Reynolds]

Yeah, because they think the government that was in charge a decade later think that they were brought to the table and they compromised too much. So they think these rules were forced upon them, that they didn't stick with it long enough and they would have got more. That was their argument.

[Dan Snow]

If you're listening to Dan Snow's history hit this is an episode all about the cod wars when Britain fought Iceland over fish. More coming up.

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[Dan Snow]

So there's a second COD war and that's caused what by this new even more. Well, this belligerent Icelandic government. What, they want a bigger exclusion zone?

[Will Reynolds]

Yes, they want a 50 mile zone now, nautical mile zone. Which is difficult because it was recognized by the Brits that okay, if they push up to 12, it's annoying, but there's still plenty of fisheries past the 12 limit that can keep these communities going. If you push up to 50, there's only two small fisheries past the 50 point. Well, on the 50 point, in the House of Commons someone actually gave the statistics which was very useful. It was Anthony Royal. He was The Undersecretary for Foreign Commonwealth affairs, and he said if they go from 12 to 50, the catches would reduce between 40 to 60%. So that's a huge undercut. So it has more of an economic threat to the Brits than the first one did. The first one was a mixture of principles. Why would you encroach on the high seas? These are our rules. Whereas this one is more economically concerned for the British.

[Dan Snow]

Right. So the Brits more determined to defend their trawlers this time.

[Will Reynolds]

But it was interesting because the Navy did not want to get involved in this one. The first one, they were actually quite up for it. They thought, oh, this will be some good training. It won't get super tense. It's the Icelandic Coast Guard, for goodness sake, we can do this. By the second one, they recognize the issues, which was Britain is never going to authorize lethal force against the Icelandic Coast Guard, because that's just insane. Internationally, A, it's a NATO partner and B, it's a small nation and a huge nation, relatively speaking. You know, the British Royal Navy is not tiny in this. In the 60s or the 70s, it's not the size it is now. It's large. And the UK is relatively declining from great power status to middle power status. It is still very influential and big. And the idea, if you just look at the comms of them firing on Icelanders, the Icelanders knew this. They had a little Focke Wulf transport plane. They used to put the media on it and tell an Icelandic Coast Guard vessel to go play silly with a Royal Navy ship and just wait for the media to get there before they do it. Because they were also playing this long comms game to try and win international support. The Royal Navy did say to the British government, if you're going to do this, you're going to have to authorize us to go up to the port, shell the port so the boats can't come out, and then we hit them there so they don't keep coming in and out like insurgents. And obviously no one was going to do that. And the navy knew that wasn't going to happen. And so you were stuck tactically in this loggerheads.

[Dan Snow]

So what happens in the second Cold.

[Will Reynolds]

War, then it gets more violent.

[Dan Snow]

It gets more violent, yeah.

[Will Reynolds]

The first one is generally considered a gentleman's affair, which is the technology had not caught up to wage such hybrid wars. And so the Icelanders, by the second conflict, and this guy became a national hero, developed something called the warp cutter, which is an old piece of Demining kit. You basically put a big hook on a tow line, you dip it down, you go forward and the hook will cut the line of the trawling vessel because they're doing deep bed trawling, basically the two lines go down, there's a big net and they scrape the bottom of the floor with a net to pick up the fish if you cut that line. I can't remember the exact numbers, but it was a huge dent in productivity in terms of the catch and the pounds the trawl being boat would take home for winnings. Every time a Coast Guard vessel turned up, even without putting the cutter out, they would all bring their nets in and just sit there and go, Royal Navy come and push them away so we can get back to fishing. Every hour we spend not fishing is X amount of money we're not making. And so it ended up as a really effective deterrent. And a lot of warp lines, which is the name of the line for the fishing net, were cut, which cost a lot of money to replace. These weren't sort of your average, if stereotypically throwing a net over the side. These were heavy duty warp lines. And then being cut had a huge financial effect on the trawler folk, both in terms of productivity but also in terms of just the cost of replacement. So they acted as quite an effective deterrent and the Royal Navy had to develop tactics to counter these.

[Dan Snow]

Well, there's one episode, isn't there, where a trawler plays Rural Britannia at top volume and tries to sort of fight off the Icelandic boat.

[Will Reynolds]

Yes, I think it's a community that may not exist really anymore. The trawling community. These are very independent men who go out for months in horrific weather, get the fish and come back. They are very independent minded. A lot of them, particularly in the first Cold War, had served in the fishery patrol squadron for mines. So they've had that war experience in the country. I think quite rightly viewed that they owed them something. So that's part of the reason the Navy went out in the first place. These are the independently spirited men of the trawlers and you got quite famous ones who would be picked up by the Coast Guard in peacetime and were just well known by the Coast Guard as like, oh, it's this person who keeps breaking the law. We'll throw him in prison, take his boat for a while and then send him on his way. It's almost like a police officer doing a beat. And he recognizes these certain individuals, you know, like the Del boys of the sea going around doing some quite interesting things.

[Dan Snow]

And on that occasion they play Royal Britannia and again throw waste and axe and things at these Icelandic vessels. But in May 73, as part of this war, there is actually live fire. Is there?

[Will Reynolds]

Yeah. So that goes back to the incident I was talking about. Essentially these trawlers have to take on fresh water and they often do it dangerously in Icelandic coves, hoping to beat the Icelanders from seeing them, because the Icelanders don't have a lot of presence. At the most, they have seven to eight vessels and one maritime patrol aircraft. And these aren't all going out at the same time. If you think of the rules of thirds, usually a third of them would be out there, a third would be in refit and a third would be in reserve, so they couldn't cover the whole area. And so these trawlers were going to into these coves, take on fresh water. The civil defense tugs would sort of turn up and go, you need to leave, please. And as they were leaving, a guy called Norman Story, who was captain, I think he was captain of the Lloydsman at this point, and he's got a great book called Tugmasters wars or something along those lines. They see an Icelandic Coast Guard come around the corner and they're like, oh, oh dear. And they get stuck. And the coast guard vessel is really trying to keep them in place, whereas they're using the tug to try and push it out of the way so they can all make a break for freedom. And the Coast Guard vessel gets very irate and starts firing solid shot. So not high explosive, not armor pit, just a solid slug. Norman Story was like, you could see them punching holes into the funnel of my vessel with none of us are armed. The Royal Navy aren't going to come into the 12 mile zone because that's illegal. That is recognized by all as Icelandic waters. So the Royal Navy was sort of on the horn going, you need to get to this line and we can come in and protect you. But we are not going to come into their waters because we're not going to break the law, which part of our argument is we're upholding the law, which is don't extend the borders. We're not going to break that. To try and uphold it.

[Dan Snow]

Wow. So they're being bombarded by effectively cannonballs taking damage from cannibals. This is the 1970s. This is extraordinary. Okay, so. And then somebody dies in this war as well.

[Will Reynolds]

It is, it's very sad, the incident itself. So the person died as a secondary effect. They didn't die in a collision. He was a technician, an engineer on board a Coast Guard vessel. And this vessel does collide with a Royal Navy ship. It could quite easily have been the Royal Navy, did it? It could have been quite easily by accident, because these ships are going very close to each other at 20 to 30 knots. Just a slight mishap and someone's going to hit each other. So some of these were by accident, others were a bit more nefarious. And he was doing some repair work in the engine room and he dropped his tool and electrocuted himself. And you don't want to laugh at it, but it's a very unfortunate death in what is a very ludicrous war. And it's very sad. And he is viewed as. There is a memorial for him, but it just highlights that there was a death, it was a conflict, it was just a very strange one, one that you wouldn't expect in a naval sort of engagement.

[Dan Snow]

How does this particular war come to an end?

[Will Reynolds]

Well, the Icelanders getting what they want, which is kind of ludicrous. Again, so it was. Edward Heath was Prime Minister of the UK at this point, so 1973, just before Harold Wilson came in. And the British were always looking for ways to end these conflicts because having the Royal Navy out there was costly. It was costly in geopolitics, but it was also costly in financial wealth and it was also costly in strategy. The Royal Navy were actively complaining that this is starting to suck up our standing forces for the NATO contribution. This is actively damaging our deterrence. We need to find ways of ending this. And so it was eventually agreed that there'll be a quota system again, that the 50 mile limit would eventually come into being. The ICJ didn't underpin at this time, but there was an agreement. But it was also sort of put off. There was a recognition that this would have to be revisited. Unlike the first conflict, where it was sort of a line under the sand, this one recognized that there would be a revisiting of the issue further down the line, which is why the third Cod war came up so quickly afterwards. You know, you had a decade in between the first and second one. Between the second and third one, you had two, two, three years.

[Dan Snow]

So there's a third COD war, 1975-6. Don't tell me it starts because the Icelanders push out that boundary a bit further, do they?

[Will Reynolds]

They do, but this one's a strange one because the Brits want the 200 mile boundary limit, but they don't want it just yet. They want it further down the line because this is when North Sea oil starts becoming a thing. And if there's a 200 limit, all of that tasty oil and gas becomes British.

[Dan Snow]

Aha. So actually suddenly the Brits approve of 200 miles of exclusive economic area when it comes to coastlines.

[Will Reynolds]

They do. And they recognize that in international law this is where it's going to end up. There is a feeling of momentum in the first and second one there's a lot more division. But in the third one there's a recognition that this is where we're going to end up. So what the Brits are doing again is a holding action, which is we don't want this to happen now because we need it to eke out slowly so that we can find ways of re employing the people of Hull and Grimsby so it doesn't just become two massive unemployment sort of black holes. And remember, this is the mid-70s. You've got high inflation. The oil crisis from the Middle east has affected everything. You don't want to add more pain on top of that. And so that's part of the idea. There was a great little quote, I think it was in the first war. Someone from the fisheries department said, if you're going to be hanged, there's no reason to be rushing to the gallows. Which is, we know this is coming, but we're not going to run towards it. We're going to go kicking and screaming.

[Dan Snow]

You're listening to Dan Snow's history hit. This is an episode all about the Cod Wars. More coming up.

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[Dan Snow]

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[Dan Snow]

Yeah.

[Will Reynolds]

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[Dan Snow]

So the Icelanders extend out to 200 miles. British trawlers ignore it, I presume, and you get confrontations.

[Will Reynolds]

Yeah. And it's probably the most sophisticated conflict in terms of everyone trying out tactics and strategy. The UK by this point had very clear rules of engagement which have been developed over the last couple of conflicts. And it came under something called operational order Dewey. And it divided the rules of engagement into four categories. Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Delta. Delta was never used. Delta was start firing. So that was the end goal. Alpha and Bravo was the one that was usually used. But the third conflict was where they actually got up to Charlie, which was you can very muscularly push away the Icelanders. Bravo was you can't make contact with them or put your ship in a position where you might accidentally make contact with them, though a lot of people ignored that. Whereas with Charlie it was recognized implicitly. You go out there and you push them away and if that runs legally you can't ram them. But if it runs the risk of you accidentally hitting them, so be it. And there was again, I say legally, everyone recognized you do not run into opposing ships because people can go overboard, they can drown, they can die. It's illegal. But you had a captain of a tribal class frigate who was sent out there and was conveniently given the plans for the Icelandic Coast Guard vessels with little circles going. This is their weakest point on their ship. So you know, he was told not to do it. But you're given all this information, you go, oh, I wonder what I meant to infer from this. And you even have one captain who had developed putting railway line spikes on the back of his ship so that if a Coast guard vessel came in, he would just slow down and two railway spikes would go straight through the front of the Icelandic Coast Guard vessel.

[Dan Snow]

This is some early medieval ship to ship action. I mean, there's some pre gunpowder technology going on with these ships. Absolutely fascinating. Although speaking of gunpowder, again, shots are fired in this war, aren't they?

[Will Reynolds]

They are. That escalation I talked about comes near the end of the third Cod war and it shocks the Icelanders because they're always under the impression that we have the escalation advantage. The Brits are never going to be super aggressive towards us because A we Coast Guard, their navy, B, all the international reasons I spoke of, and also NATO, we haven't talked about it yet, but at one point Iceland said to the Americans, we might declare Article 5 on Britain. So it goes mad. And Kissinger refers to it as the tyranny of the small states. Kissinger is this big great power theorist. He's like, yes, it's all about the big powers. And you've got little Iceland going around threatening to break up NATO by calling its allies on one of the founding members. Iceland's also a founding member. So on the big founding members, right.

[Dan Snow]

Things are getting really bad. And it looks like the navy, they sustain quite a lot of damage in this third war.

[Will Reynolds]

They do, which is why the escalation happened in the end, because it got to the point where they went, we can no longer protect the trawlers with the restrictions in place. The Icelanders are taking advantage of this. They know the restrictions are in place and they are ramming us in such a way that they have control. And in any military engagement, you want to be the one dictating the tempo and the control of a battle. Essentially, you want to be the one which is able to decide when and where to use force, because that's where advantage comes from. And the British go to the government. Unless you give us ability to go up to Charlie, we're going to lose this. Because, as you say, these Royal Navy ships were getting hammered by these Coast Guard vessels because they just weren't designed for it. These are highly sophisticated, a lot of them. Anti surface warfare vessels, anti submarine warfare vessels as well. They're designed to go out, hunt Soviet submarines and sink them. They're not designed to play argy bargy with the Icelandic Coast Guard. That's mainly the civil defense tugs that do that. And there's actually some interesting tactics that come out of that. They were testing tactics where you would get two frigates and a tug and you would use the wake of the frigates to speed up the tug and then sort of slingshot it into an Icelandic Coast Guard vessel. So these are, you know, these are very odd. Norman Story talks about it in his book where he goes, you know, we do these exercises and practice. I don't they ever did it. Or you would get a WASP helicopter, which is the anti submarine warfare helicopter at the time, on the back of a Leander. It's quite small and it would buzz a Coast Guard vessel's bridge, so they're all distracted whilst the Lloydsman sneaks up from behind and hits it in the back. So you've got all these various tactics that are at play. But the navy, it does ultimately, because of the restrictions in place, because it can't use the Sophisticated weaponry on board, which is synonymous with the missile age. You might as well just brought a trireme out and started ramming each other, it's that sort of thing.

[Dan Snow]

But HMS Yarmouth gets her bow torn off. Diomede gets a gash in the hull.

[Will Reynolds]

Juno as well. Juno gets hit quite badly. HMS Mermaid.

[Dan Snow]

Eastbourne's almost retired from service after, isn't she? She had to be turned into a training vessel.

[Will Reynolds]

Yeah. And I feel bad for Eastbourne because she was in the first and third COD war. She was a type 12 Whitby class, I think. So these were the very light frigates. The Leander is a bit different, but it got to the point if this conflict was going to carry on, the Royal Navy was going to bring out HMS Tiger, which was one of its last cruisers. It was what the Japanese would call today a ddh, a helicopter based vessel. So it could fit about three or four Sea Kings, I think, in the back. And what it would do is just sort of use its immense size because this was a product of the last sort of cruiser line to just really go to town and push people out. I never got to that the war ended before that, but this was the level that they were playing at now.

[Dan Snow]

But if we're talking about these frigates being very badly damaged and even put out of service, I mean, the Falklands War, the Brits only lost, I think it was two frigates and two destroyers and there were some other ships as well. But I mean, this is a serious amount of damage being done to Royal Navy ships. It's going to cause concern in Whitehall, right?

[Will Reynolds]

It does, yeah. It concerns massive concern in the Royal Navy and the Admiralty and the Ministry of Defence, because it was the Ministry of Defence at this point. The Admiralty were around in the first one and then they sort of coalesced in the 60s and so you got the Ministry of Defence in the third one. And it was genuine concern because it was affecting NATO responsibilities and also costs. Perennial issue. The defense is always cash strapped. The last thing you want is unintended vessels going into production lines to be refitted and re kitted out. The issue is that the Coast Guard captains are very independent. The Navy captain, the Royal Navy, by the way, the Royal Navy are very strict with their rules. They know exactly what their limits are and so they aren't going to overdo them. The Icelanders just go hell for lever. Even if their restrictions have been put in place by their own government, they just get on with it. There was one captain who was known as the Mad Axeman and He had T shirts printed. I think there's a video of John Prescott shaking his hand when he went to go visit Iceland at some point. So it's all very, it's all very insane. The Icelanders are much more aggressive and actually the Brits have profile dossiers on each captain going, this guy's relatively cool headed. This guy is a massive Anglophobe. Avoid all costs. This one is. So they've actually got intelligence profiles on the individual Icelandic captains to give to the Royal Navy officers to make sure they know who they're dealing with.

[Dan Snow]

So this begins in the end of 1975 and it comes to an end in 1976, the summer of 76. How did, how does this war come to a finish?

[Will Reynolds]

I think you can guess.

[Dan Snow]

I can.

[Will Reynolds]

Which is Iceland wins. Iceland gets what it wants. Again, restrictions are in place, quotas are put in. But at this point, this is the death of the deep sea trawling industry for the uk. People would say, oh well, the Brits should have gone harder. There was no conceivable way the Brits could have really won this. The Icelanders played a blinder of a game geopolitically. They knew exactly what they could get away with and there were some times when they couldn't. There were some times when international opinion did turn against them. But for the majority of the time they were able to play within the restrictions in place. The Brits were always had a losing hand unless they were willing to go into the ports and just smash up these coast guard vessels and risk everything that was entailed with that. I cannot conceive of a way that they geopolitically could have one. And winning is an interesting definition because again, the NATO aspect, we haven't mentioned it, but Iceland is a key aspect of the NATO defense plan because it sits in the middle of the Greenland Iceland UK gap, which controls Soviet submarines going in and out into the Atlantic, which then also protects what would be the reinforcement route to Western Europe if there was a war, because the Americans would come all across in that area. There's a big air base in Iceland called Keflavik which has big, big American and British Maritime patrol aircraft. Nimrods used to fly from there all the time. And the Icelanders threatened to close it down. They said, if you're, you know, we are in NATO for our interests. If you're not supporting our interests, we're out. They play a good game. And the Brits, I think the Brits do well for what they have. They are able to Slow it down. And you know, it's not perfect, but they do lose. The Brits do lose, but they lose with some compromises instead of an unconditional surrender, if you will, in terms.

[Dan Snow]

What an extraordinary story. Will just take you back to the beginning, though. You did mention that the Icelanders think there were four COD wars. What's the fourth?

[Will Reynolds]

There's one at the beginning in the early 50s, and I'll admit I've studied this less, and maybe that's me as a brick going, there weren't four. There were three, but there were four. And the early one was over three nautical miles out to about four, I think. No conflict occurred, no tension, nothing along those lines. But it was more of a geopolitical contest of wills.

[Dan Snow]

So there was a precursor. There was. There was a little prelude. Okay.

[Will Reynolds]

It's like the prequels of Cod Wars.

[Dan Snow]

The prequel, the Star wars universe prequel. Thank you very much indeed, Will, for coming on the podcast and talking all about this rather extraordinary episode of history that I think many Brits decide to memory hole.

[Will Reynolds]

Thank you so much. And I'll say that this does have impacts on Brits because every time you buy fish and chips. Cod and chips in the uk, that cod's not coming from British waters.

[Dan Snow]

We're buying it off the Icelanders.

[Will Reynolds]

We're buying it off the Icelanders.

[Dan Snow]

My goodness me. We're rewarding their territorial expansionism. I can't believe it.

[Will Reynolds]

Exactly. The Imperial Empire of Iceland.

[Dan Snow]

Exactly. Okay, Will, this is getting dangerous. I will see you next time. Thank you very much for coming on the podcast.

[Will Reynolds]

Thank you so much for having me.

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[Will Reynolds]

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