Igtip Kangertiva, also known as Comanche Bay ( da, Comanche Bugt).
is a fjord in Eastern
Greenland
Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland i ...
. It is part of the
Sermersooq
Sermersooq (, da, sted med meget is, lit=place of much ice) is a municipality in Greenland, formed on 1 January 2009 from five earlier, smaller municipalities. Its administrative seat is the city of Nuuk (formerly called Godthåb), the capital ...
municipality
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.
The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...
.
History
During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
a
weather station
A weather station is a facility, either on land or sea, with instruments and equipment for measuring atmospheric conditions to provide information for weather forecasts and to study the weather and climate. The measurements taken include tempera ...
of the
US Army Air Corps
The United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) was the aerial warfare service component of the United States Army between 1926 and 1941. After World War I, as early aviation became an increasingly important part of modern warfare, a philosophical r ...
[Spencer Apollonio, ''Lands That Hold One Spellbound: A Story of East Greenland'', 2008 pp. 272-275] and the
US Coast Guard
The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and maritime law enforcement, law enforcement military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight Uniformed services ...
was established in Comanche Bay. The decision was taken in the spring of 1942 and the
USCGC Comanche (WPG-76), a ship of the
Greenland Patrol, was sent to survey the fjord. The USCGC Comanche reached the site in July and the bay was subsequently named after it.
1941: The Coast Guard and the Greenland Operations – Coast Guard
/ref>
Besides the weather facility the US military wanted a base from which the warplanes of Operation Bolero
Operation Bolero was the commonly used reference for the code name of the United States military troop buildup in the United Kingdom during World War II in preparation for the initial cross-channel invasion plan known as Operation Roundup, to be ...
that were forced to land on the Greenland ice sheet could be rescued. Owing to its closeness to the inland ice Comanche Bay was deemed a favorable place from which to send rescue patrols. However, when shortly thereafter a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress crash-landed on the ice sheet not far from Comanche Bay, a rescue operation ran into difficulties because of treacherous crevasses near the crash site and two men were lost. Following this accident the base was closed in the fall of the same year.
Geography
Igtip Kangertiva or Comanche Bay lies at the southwestern limit of King Christian IX Land
King Christian IX Land ( da, Kong Christian IX Land) is a coastal area of Southeastern Greenland in Sermersooq Municipality fronting the Denmark Strait and extending through the Arctic Circle from 65°N to 70°N.
History
This area was named i ...
, a few miles east of Pikiulleq. Its mouth lies between Ole Romer Island to the west and Aqitseq to the east.[''Prostar Sailing Directions 2005 Greenland and Iceland Enroute'', p. 103] The fjord is oriented in a roughly NNW/SSE direction. There are a number of low islets in its western shore close to its mouth.
Bibliography
* Wallace R. Hansen. ''Greenland's Icy Fury''. Williams-Ford Texas A&M University Military History Series. 1994 .
See also
*List of fjords of Greenland
This is a list of the most important fjords of Greenland:In Northern Greenland, a large area made up entirely of fjords; therefore Peary Land above not a fjord but a fjord area.In Northeastern Greenland, a large area made up entirely of fjo ...
* My Gal Sal (aircraft)
References
External links
The lost squadron and Comanche Bay
* ttps://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/high-risk-rescue-attempt-greenland.html War History - A plane found 38 feet under the ice: A Daring, High-Risk Rescuebr>‘Frozen in Time’: The fate of brave airmen, locked in the ice
Fjords of Greenland
World War II sites in Greenland
{{Greenland-geo-stub