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Bacchante's Cod War

Background

Bacchante's part in events

Background

Three times Great Britain has been in dispute with Iceland over fishing since the last war and each time the Royal Navy has been called in to protect our trawlermen from interference by the Icelandic Coast Guard vessels. On each occasion the reason for the confrontation came about when Iceland tried to push her territorial fishing limits out, thus forcing our deep-sea trawling fleet to be run off the best fishing grounds. The reasoning behind their moves were not without good foundation as the country has no mineral wealth and the economy of the island was largely dependent on its own substantial fishing industry. Their government maintained that over-fishing around the coast by foreign trawlers was slowly leading to the extinction of fish stocks and in all probability they were quite right. For this reason they introduced a 'quota' restriction on all foreign trawlers and started to dictate to fishermen which areas they could use.

This third dispute started in 1975 when Iceland unilaterally, and somewhat surprisingly at the time, declared a 200 mile fishing zone around her coast, extending it from 50 miles, a limit which Britain did not recognise in any case. That Iceland should want to extend her limit was not really the point at issue for Britain herself, in collaboration with her then styled Common Market partners, wished to extend her territorial fishing areas. The problem was that Iceland wasn't willing to wait any longer and took the law into her own hands despite a forthcoming 'Law of the Sea' conference which was about to be convened to discuss just these proposals. In extending the limit without reasonable warning the deep-sea fishermen of Britain and Germany suddenly found their traditional fishing grounds denied to them. The British Government took the stance that the Icelandic move was both premature and illegal and advised our fishermen that they should not only go on fishing in the disputed area but they should in fact fish right up to the recognised 12 mile limit. Very soon the fishermen were complaining that the Icelandic coast guard vessels (ICGV) were interfering with their work and, indeed, cutting the warps - the two ropes that attach the trawl net to the trawler - causing thousands of pounds of damage and lost working time. The warp cutting was a relatively new-found way of interfering with our trawlers but was also considered extremely dangerous to the fishermen. Against these overwhelming odds the British trawlermen called for naval protection and the government obliged.

To mount such an operation was costly to say the least. It goes without saying that the Royal Navy didn't have any suitable purpose-built fishery patrol vessel capable of doing this job so the task fell to our frigate force, mainly fast anti-submarine vessels which were quite unsuitable for gunboat diplomacy. At least three and often four were required on station at any given time with up to three others standing by at Rosyth or the Clyde. A fleet oiler was also on station and another ready to go at short notice. Two large naval tugs as well as a number of other large chartered ocean-going tugs were invariably in the vicinity to provide support. Each frigate had a Wasp helicopter whilst a Wessex was detached from one of the guided missile destroyers and housed on the oiler. As the dispute wore on a special Wessex-equipped fishery protection flight was formed. Additionally an RAF Nimrod patrol aircraft was deployed each day to provide adequate long-range cover and provide a source of supply from the UK, particularly the all-important mail.

(The above was plagiarised, with consent, from www.hms-yarmouth.com. Thanks guys. Help yourself to the Yarmouth pics on this site.)

Bacchante's Cod War

On 12th December 1975, in Chatham, we were given the joyful news - we sail for Iceland on 2nd January 1976. And lo! we did sail on 2nd January, right into a very rough sea. (I managed to sprain my ankle alighting from the Seacat director. I can still hear the "squelch" noise!) and our arrival in Rosyth was delayed to Sunday. This was annoying, as my wife was traveling up to Edinburgh by train for the weekend. I managed to get a signal sent to HMS Cochrane, who contacted Waverley Station, to warn her she needed to fend for herself for the night. We sailed from Rosyth 0900 Tues 6th Jan, to relieve HMS Ghurka off Iceland. As we passed the Faeroes, we casevacced off a stoker, with suspected appendicitis, and reached Icelandic waters on Thurs 8th.

"Riding off" - placing our ship between the gunboat and the fishing fleet, often only 20 yards away, at 20 knots. The gunboat would then try to stop suddenly and duck under our stern.