Happy Saturday, everybody. I am Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. An interesting headline caught my eye this week. It was that the Icelandic Coastguard vessel a Year is being sold after fifty years of service. It's being sold because it has fallen into disuse over the last couple of years. And this headline caught my eye not just because I've been really, really nostalgic for a trip I took to Iceland a few years back, but also because this vessel played a major part in the Cod Wars, which took place between Iceland and the UK. Our previous episode on the Cod Wars came out on October and this news gave us a good excuse to put it right back into everybody's feeds. So enjoy. Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class. A production of I Heart Radio Hello and Welcome to the Pod asked I'm Tracy B. Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. When I was in Iceland back in the spring, I learned a very tiny bit about the Cod Wars. Uh. Long time listeners to the show will probably notice some similarities between the thing that we're going to talk about today and the Chesapeake Bay Oyster Wars, which we talked about back in But while the Chesapeake Bay conflict was mostly confined to the states of Virginia and Maryland, the Cod Wars were an international dispute that wound up having a lot more long lasting ramifications in both the United Kingdom and in Iceland. So after I got home from the Strip where I learned that the Cod Wars had happened, I put them on the potential episode list, and then all of a sudden, over the last week or so, multiple other people, sort of apropos of nothing, said hey, would you talk about the Cod Wars um and that included most recently Gemma and Steve. So I thought, okay, I guess I'll put cod Wars at the top of the list. Have been kind of languishing there, and now we're gonna do it. I do want to be clear that this is definitely not the only fishing dispute that has ever happened in these particular waters, but it's definitely one of the most famous. Uh and in some ways it's the weirdest and the most comical, even though it was not actually funny to the people it was happening to like it sounds funny, but a lot of people's livelihoods were deeply at stake in the middle of this thing. That sounds sort of comedic. So to give you the setup, Iceland and the United Kingdom are two relatively small island nations. The UK is a little more than nine thousand square miles and Iceland is a little less than forty thousand square miles. That's about two hundred forty three thousand square kilometers and one hundred three thousand square kilometers respectively. The UK, however, has much more habitable land than Iceland does. The middle of ice Land is mountainous, and it's covered in glaciers and also in many places volcanic, so nearly all of its population lives relatively close to the coast. It is completely unsurprising that two relatively small island nations, one of which is only really habitable along the coastline, have historically relied on fishing, both as an industry and for the nation's cuisine. As we discussed in our podcast about the volcanic eruption on the island of Hamming, fishing is critically important to Iceland's economy today. The fishing industry and Iceland employees about eleven thousand people, which is a little more than four percent of Iceland's total workforce, and the fishing industry directly contributes to about eleven percent of Iceland of the icelandic GDP and indirectly a full quarter of Iceland's GDP. About fort of Iceland's export earnings come from fish today, with cod being a primary export, and before the nineteen seventies almost of Iceland's exports were fish. Meanwhile, Britain's fishing industry employs a little under twelve thousand fishers today, so about the same size as Iceland's industry, but because the UK's population and economy are so much larger, it's really a much smaller proportion of the UK economy as a whole. The UK has a population of sixty four million compared to three hundred and twenty three thousand in Iceland. Marine fishing is about zero point oh five percent of the British GDP, and all forms of fishing together make up about zero point zero seven percent of the British GDP. Prior to the nineteen fifties, though fishing was a much bigger part of the British economy, especially in fishing ports cities like Hull, Gramsby and Fleetwood. In these ports, fishing trawlers were the prime arey employer and most of the fishing fleet that sailed from these ports did what's known as distant water fishing, so boats would leave these ports in Britain and they would travel hundreds of miles to fish in the waters around Iceland. In addition to catching a lot of cod, Britain eight and continues to eat, for that matter, a lot of cod. In the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties, four d and thirty thousand tons of cod were being eaten in Britain annually, overwhelmingly in the form of fish and chips. Britain continues to eat more cod than anywhere else in the world, a third of the cod in the world, and of the cod caught in European waters. So yeah, the Iceland and Britain were united by the fact that there's lots of cod around Iceland and Brittain was eating almost all of it, almost all the cod because fish and chips, I mean, it's it's delicious and also kind of astounding just how much was being eaten. Another important piece of background information, and all of this story has to do with the idea of international waters and how nations get to decide which parts of the ocean are There's the idea that a nation with the coastline has rights to a certain amount of the ocean around it. Has existed for centuries, and a nation's territorial waters extend a certain distance past its coast and then beyond that our international waters. Starting in the seventeen hundreds in Europe and the America's, a nation's territorial waters typically extended about three miles past the coastline, although there were definitely exceptions, with nations claiming more or less. Prior to its independence in nineteen four, Iceland was a part of Denmark, and according to the Anglo Danish Territorial Waters Agreement, it, like so many other nations, followed that three mile limit. That agreement was set to expire in nineteen fifty one, But when Iceland became independent from Denmark, it got to work setting its own terms for where other nations could fish immediately. Iceland had two primary motivations for reevaluating its fishing boundaries. One was that fishing was so enormously critical to its own economy that it wanted to make sure its own fishing fleet had the greatest advantage. Iceland sort of viewed this situation as a zero sum game. Other nations that were taking fish out of the waters around Iceland were taking them from Iceland because Iceland had so few other industries or national or natural resources to add to its economy. The other was that Iceland was becoming increasingly concerned about the health of the fish stocks around it and the threat of overfishing, so banning other nations from fishing closer to its shores was a way to try to keep Icelandic fishers fishing while ideal lowering the risk of depleting those fish populations. As a result, on May fifteenth, nineteen fifty two, Iceland extended the line from three miles to four And this wasn't the first push of its territorial water since becoming independent, but it was the first extension that affected a part of the sea that Britain had been using for its fishing. Yes, some of the prior extension was more to the north, which was not as much of a British fishing ground. Britain was not happy about this change. There was more shelter available in bad weather three miles out compared to four miles out. And then, of course there was just the principle of the thing. Britain's who had been making their livelihoods through fishing for generations and who lived in port cities where fishing was the biggest industry were basically being shut out of a strip of the sea that they'd historically had access to. When Iceland said its new line at four miles, flags flew at half mast in British distant water fishing ports. The Grimsby Evening Telegraph called it black Thursday. In spite of this new law, the four mile zone around Iceland did not make that big of a difference to British distant distant water fishing boats. A lot of them had already been crossing the three mile line when fish were scarce beyond it. A number of captains and owners also thought that the fine that came with crossing that four mile line was worth the risk if it meant better fishing on the other side of the line. All in all, even though there was a bit of cat and mouse darting around the line, British captains and crews surrendered when they realized they were caught in ICELANDIC Coastguard personnel were always honest and faring court cases over illegal fishing. Aside from some tomfoolery, people on both sides of this dispute were generally respectful and professional about it. Yeah, and in spite of all the like the flying the flags that half mast and the s ring back and forth across the line where people weren't really supposed to be like, you know, when the coast Guard showed up and was like, you're not supposed to be here, they would have been like, yeah, you're you gottess. The UK also took the very reasonable course of action of taking their dispute with Iceland before the International Court of Justice. When Iceland's four mile limit was upheld, Britain responded by banning Icelandic fishing vessels from landing their fish in Britain. Since Britain, as we said earlier, was buying most of Iceland's cod, and I mean British British cod catches were not nearly enough to keep the nation supplied in fish and chips. This basically was an economic sanction sanction against Iceland, but Iceland did not back down and this was only the first of several times that Iceland would move its fishing boundary, and we're going to talk about where things stopped being so sort of cordial and respectful and started to really get ugly. After we have a brief sponsor break. In ninety eight, the international community participated in the first International Conference on the Law of the Sea. The u n's International Law Commission had been discussing and evaluating maritime international law for nearly a decade, but this was the first conference that was specifically devoted to international maritime law. Eighties six states participated in this conference. Fishing, we should point out, was certainly not the only thing being discussed at the conference. Resolutions were adopted regarding nuclear tests, radioactive pollution of the oceans, and conservation, and various smaller nations suggested a major expansion of the commonly used three mile limit between international and territorial waters. The new proposed limit a twelve mile economic exclusion zone around a nation's coast. Most larger nations resisted this idea for reasons ranging from economic unfairness to concerns that their navies could not effectively maneuver or patrol with that much of the sea off limits. However, when Iceland then expanded its exclusionary zone to twelve miles, and part of its argument was that that twelve miles was eventually going to be international law anyway. And while that previous move from three miles to four miles had been met with flags at half masted in Britain's port towns, the jump to twelve miles was genuinely alarming. The zone between four and twelve miles from Iceland's coast was prime fishing territory for Britain's distant water fishing fleet. Shutting Britain out of twelve miles around Iceland had the potential to completely disrupt the fishing industry. Aside from really genuine win concerns about the British economy, especially in these sports cities, Britain was also really frustrated on principle. I understand this. I'm a person who gets colossally frustrated on principle, as had been the case with that four mile line. The twelve mile line was cutting Brittain out of waters that it had historically had access to and felt entitled to. And then there was an emotional way to all of it, and the cities that were home to Britain's distant water fishing fleets. Fishing was really at the heart of the community and of people's identities. So pushing out distant water fishing felt like it was stripping people of their way of life and of something that they felt like was a core part of who they were. Also, there's the whole fish and chip thing again, which is also part of like the identity issue. Yes, Like in the United States, fish and chips and a lot of places they're just like they're just sort of stand pub food, right, But in the fifties and sixties and Britain, fish and chips was really a working class staple, and like chippies were places that that sold fish and chips, and like there's a whole cultural layer to the existence in the consumption of of fish and chips that um does not have the quite the same weight. And most of the United States, yeah uh, And the UK was not the only nation affected by this expansion in Iceland's territorial waters. Belgium, West Germany and the Faroe Islands were among the other nations fishing in that same area, But it was the British fishing fleet that was making the most use of it among the international community, and it was Britain that became the most vocal in wanting continued access to that four to twelve mile zone. Those cat and mouse shenanigans that had happened at the four mile line kicked up several role notches in the four to twelve mile zone around Iceland. As one might expect, Iceland deployed its Coastguard to try to enforce the policy, and it allowed officials to board British ships and arrest their crews for fishing in waters where they were not supposed to be. In response, Britain deployed ships from the Royal Navy to protect the trawlers, essentially mandating that the trawlers fishing areas where the Royal Navy was patrolling, and the trawlers used nets to try to keep Icelandic inspectors from boarding, as well as springing boarding parties with hoses and trying to use spears to puncture the rubber dighis the Coastguard used for boarding. When a trawler was boarded, they'd often call in the Royal Navy to assist, and on at least one occasion, the Royal Navy then refused to let the Icelandic Coast Guard officials go back to their own vessel, instead kept them on board as guests in quotation marks of the Crown. One boarding party was eventually put into a little boat off the coast of keef Levik and allowed to row back to shore there. And that's really irritated the people that were, uh, we're working at the NATO base in kef Levik, because they were like, what do you mean there is a British warship right there that just dropped you off in the water. Because Iceland had about six gun boats compared to the thirty seven Royal Navy ships that Britain had deployed, Iceland didn't really feel comfortable making a direct assault on the British force. Instead, Iceland kept thorough records of the names and numbers of all of the British ships that broke the twelve mile limit. I kind of love fighting it with bureaucracy and I don't even understand why. Yeah, yeah, this distribute wound up being settled with a compromise in nineteen sixty one. Britain ultimately agreed to respect the twelve mile limit and exchange for a three year period to phase out the distant water fishing in the twelve mile zone. Once this agreement was reached, Iceland destroyed all those records of who all had been illegally fishing in the twelve mile zone, which I also am kind of charmed by. Yes, it's like this is going on your permanent record. Okay, now we're cool. We could get rid of that permanent record. Uh. In the agreement, Iceland also acknowledged that it would continue to consider extending the border even further, but would give Britain advanced notice if this were to happen. Quote, the Icelandic Government will continue to work for the implementation of the al Thing Resolution of five May nineteen fifty nine regarding the extension of fisheries jurisdiction around Iceland, but shall give to the United Kingdom Government six months notice of such extension, and in case of a dispute in relation to such extension, the matter shall, at the request of either party, be referred to the International Court of Justice. Yes, those based referring to a resolution that had been put out a couple of years before about possibly having an even bigger exclusion zone. And then on July fourteenth of nineteen seventy one, the government of Iceland released a new policy statement which said, quote the fisheries agreements with the United Kingdom and the Federal German Republic I'll be terminated and a resolution be made about an extension of fishery limit up to fifty nautical miles from the baselines, effective not later than one September ninety two. So at this point we've gone from three miles to four miles, to twelve miles to fifty miles. Yeah, it's a big jump. I can imagine if you are part of the fishing industry, the knee jerk reaction could be irate at that point. Uh, And that would explain why this is where things got really really heated between the UK and Iceland. The United Kingdom once again took its dispute to the International Court of Justice in the Hague, which found in Britain's favor, but Iceland argued that the court did not have jurisdiction. Iceland was at this point incredibly frustrated and alarmed over the condition of its fishing stocks. Stocks of the icelandic herring had dropped precipitously almost to nothing, and Iceland was concerned that cod were headed for this same fate. They had made repeated calls for international discussions on conservation of fish stocks and sustainable fishing practices, and none of that had gotten enough attention for Iceland to really feel secure in the future of of a nation that was basically dependent on fishing. Like at this point and even still today in a lot of ways, if the if the fishing industry in Iceland is gone, Iceland as a nation cannot survive. And so even though there were some nations that were willing to talk about more conservation oriented fishing practices at this point in the seventies, Iceland was like, no, really, we will die as a nation if we don't look after these fish. And to make matters worse from the British point of view, also in ninety two, the United Kingdom joined the Common Market, and this was basically an approach by the European Economic Community that gave all its members equal access to the territorial waters of all the other members after a grace period. Iceland, not being a member of the European Economic Community, was not affected, but the UK was concerned about what it would mean for its own fishing industry to give the rest of the European economic community access to its fishing grounds the UK, to the UK fishing fleet, those waters off the coast of Iceland became even more important. So the UK once again deployed the Royal Navy to protect its distant water trawlers. And during the previous dispute, the trawlers were basically supposed to stick with the navy, and now they were trying to do it the other way around. The trawlers would go whether where they needed to fish, and the Navy would follow them to protect them. In other words, the UK had decided not to respect that fifty mile line, and we're going to talk about the fallout from that a little bit more after we once again paused for a word from a sponsor. The first day that British ships made their way across the newly established fifty mile line around Iceland, they covered up their names and numbers on their ships and hoisted pirate flags. Iceland's coast Guard was mostly amused at this course of action, because at this point they had been patrolling these waters with these British trawlers for years, and they were sort of like, do you think we really can't recognize your ship? Without the name on it, like, we know what your ship looks like, we know who you are. It's the clark can't Glasses disguise of the sea. It was absolutely the Clark can't glasses to sect the guys of the sea. And this time around things really did start though, as much as we're laughing now, they became very serious and physical between Iceland and the UK. Towards the end of the previous dispute, Iceland had developed a trawling net cutter, and this was essentially a minesweeper modified with a road grading blade that was dragged through the water behind a boat so when it hit the high tension trawling wires, it would cut right through them. This was the part I learned at a museum in Iceland where I was like, oh, the Icelandic Coast Guard was just cutting through trawling nuts. That's fascinating. However, the cruise of the British trawlers were horrified and alarmed at this invention. The wires of these trawling nuts, I mean, these are enormous nets that are under the water and they fill up with fish. They are under a whole lot of tension. So it was within the realm of possibility that a wire that had been cut could re bound and literally cut someone in half. Iceland insisted that this cutting was happening far enough below the surface of the water that this was not a risk, and there wasn't a risk to human life because all of this energy that was being dissipated when the wire was cut basically was was dissipated in the traveling through the water. Um Even so, even if if there wasn't a risk, and I think you can argue that either way, the loss of the trawling net itself, and of the time and energy that you had put into putting it together and deploying it, and whatever time you had spent fishing with it basically meant that people were losing a lot of work and equipment in this process. The Icelandic Coastguard was vastly outnumbered. It had six Coastguard vessels plus two Polish built trawlers retrofitted for the purpose. Britain, on the other hand, had a total of twenty nine ships earmarked for the purpose, was six to nine of them in Icelandic water at any given time. In addition to those frigates were seven supply ships, nine tug boats and three artillery ships to protect its forty trawlers. Soon, in spite of being so heavily outnumbered, Icelandic vessels started intentionally ramming British Royal Navy ships and trawlers. This actually there was one collision that did lead to the death of an Icelandic officer. Britain responded by trying to update its trawler fleet by radio about the positions of Iceland's vessels, So the Icelandic Coastguards started recording Britain's transmissions on the positions of where the Icelandic vessels were and then replaying them at a later date to so confusion. When Britain realized that that was happening, their ships began to spread the word by radio to disregard the prior message, so the Icelandic Coast Guard recorded that too to replay it later on. It's a a ghost arms at that point where they're doing like these false sounds. Escapes May nine seventy three and Icelandic ship shelled a British trawler. Also in May, Iceland banned British planes from landing at Keflavik Air Base. That October, the UK and Iceland finally agreed to limit the number of British ships in icelandic waters, limit the size of the catch, and thankfully stop ramming each other. So this is kind of an uneasy piece that lasted for a couple of years. But in nineteen seventy five, Iceland extended its maritime border again to two hundred miles, so now we've gone three four twelve fifty two hundred. Once again, Britain refused to to respect yet another expansion in the exclusionary zone around Iceland. Negotiating negotiations really quickly broke down. Iceland threatened to close the NATO Basic Kevlovik entirely and to end diplomatic relations with Britain. The international community became really alarmed. All of these conflicts were running parallel to the Cold War, and there were some concerns that Iceland, which was strategically placed between Russia and North America, might, under all of this pressure and resistance from Britain, just abandoned its other diplomatic ties in favor of allying with Russia. Eventually, after numerous rammings and even some shelling caused damage to ships on both sides of the conflict, the Secretary General of NATO doctor Joseph Lunz had to mediate an agreement between Iceland and the UK, and that was signed in June of ninety six. It upheld Iceland's two hundred mile exclusion zone and it specified that Britain could have a maximum of twenty four trawlers in that zone at any given time. Conservation zones were established where no fishing would be allowed. After six months, there would be no more fishing in the two hundred mile zone. When those six months were up, Britain's distant water fishing fleet was effectively put out of business. Trawler owners were given some restitution for the loss of their businesses, and the government had reassured the distant water fishing industry to expect retraining for other work as well as compensation for basically having been made redundant. However, that support did not actually materialize in Britain's Fishermen's Association was formed to start fighting for compensation, and this was a battle that went on until July of two thousand, when a settlement of twenty six billion pounds was was earmarked for people who had been put out of work. As a consequence of this international agreement, fish stocks began to be depleted anyway, with Iceland needing to send boats farther afield, which turned into conflict with other nations as well, particularly Russia and Norway. Yeah, there's stocks have rebounded a lot now, but if if you look at sharts of the fish populations around Iceland, there's like a decline over the sixties and then a cliff and then they are very alarmingly low and then they start to recover. Uh. There's also a documentary. It was actually an Icelandic documentary, but it aired on the BBC, and one of the Icelandic officials that was interviewed for it talked about going to Britain visiting some of these ports that had been the distant water fishing ports, seeing all of these decommissioned ships just sort of derelict there in the port, and it reconfirming for him. Okay, seriously, we have got to we have got to conserve our fishing stocks because as a result of our trying to do that, all of these people were put out of work and lost their livelihoods um which I like I thought was an interesting sentiment to come back to you because at that point it was years after the decisions had all been made. I like the part with the pirate flags, that's my favorite part well, and there's also there were things about like the British ships basically throwing potatoes at people, uh I mean at the at the Icelandic ships. So this documentary documentary is really super interesting because you hear from people who were who were on these ships and we're uh, we're making living, making their living fishing, and it really does seem like, especially through the first the first couple of incidents where it moved from three miles to four and from four to twelve, that there was kind of a weird spirit of camaraderie where where the British, the British fisherman would be like, uh, yeah, we're gonna do this anyway, and also throw potatoes at you, and Iceland was like, that's not cool, but we're gonna totally be fair when we arrest you and take you to court for your unsanctioned fishing activities. Um. It definitely though, just just ruined the economy of some particular ports cities. And then when you look at Britain's fishing industry today, it is completely different than it was up through nineteen seventy and also a lot of the fish that used to be UH used to be fished through distant water fishing fleets are instead now raised through aquacultures that are basically farmed instead of UM having this whole international agreement to send trawlers to other international waters to try to fish. Yeah show, thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. Since this episode is out of the archive, if you heard an email address or a Facebook U r L or something similar over the course of the show that could be obsolete now. Our current email address is History Podcast at i heart radio dot com. Our old house stuff works email address no longer works, and you can find us all over social media at missed in History and you can subscribe to our show on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, the I heart Radio app, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Stuff You Missed in History Class is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Happy Saturday, everybody. I am Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. An interesting headline caught my eye this week. It was that the Icelandic Coastguard vessel a Year is being sold after fifty years of service. It's being sold because it has fallen into disuse over the last couple of years. And this headline caught my eye not just because I've been really, really nostalgic for a trip I took to Iceland a few years back, but also because this vessel played a major part in the Cod Wars, which took place between Iceland and the UK. Our previous episode on the Cod Wars came out on October and this news gave us a good excuse to put it right back into everybody's feeds. So enjoy. Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class. A production of I Heart Radio Hello and Welcome to the Pod asked I'm Tracy B. Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. When I was in Iceland back in the spring, I learned a very tiny bit about the Cod Wars. Uh. Long time listeners to the show will probably notice some similarities between the thing that we're going to talk about today and the Chesapeake Bay Oyster Wars, which we talked about back in But while the Chesapeake Bay conflict was mostly confined to the states of Virginia and Maryland, the Cod Wars were an international dispute that wound up having a lot more long lasting ramifications in both the United Kingdom and in Iceland. So after I got home from the Strip where I learned that the Cod Wars had happened, I put them on the potential episode list, and then all of a sudden, over the last week or so, multiple other people, sort of apropos of nothing, said hey, would you talk about the Cod Wars um and that included most recently Gemma and Steve. So I thought, okay, I guess I'll put cod Wars at the top of the list. Have been kind of languishing there, and now we're gonna do it. I do want to be clear that this is definitely not the only fishing dispute that has ever happened in these particular waters, but it's definitely one of the most famous. Uh and in some ways it's the weirdest and the most comical, even though it was not actually funny to the people it was happening to like it sounds funny, but a lot of people's livelihoods were deeply at stake in the middle of this thing. That sounds sort of comedic. So to give you the setup, Iceland and the United Kingdom are two relatively small island nations. The UK is a little more than nine thousand square miles and Iceland is a little less than forty thousand square miles. That's about two hundred forty three thousand square kilometers and one hundred three thousand square kilometers respectively. The UK, however, has much more habitable land than Iceland does. The middle of ice Land is mountainous, and it's covered in glaciers and also in many places volcanic, so nearly all of its population lives relatively close to the coast. It is completely unsurprising that two relatively small island nations, one of which is only really habitable along the coastline, have historically relied on fishing, both as an industry and for the nation's cuisine. As we discussed in our podcast about the volcanic eruption on the island of Hamming, fishing is critically important to Iceland's economy today. The fishing industry and Iceland employees about eleven thousand people, which is a little more than four percent of Iceland's total workforce, and the fishing industry directly contributes to about eleven percent of Iceland of the icelandic GDP and indirectly a full quarter of Iceland's GDP. About fort of Iceland's export earnings come from fish today, with cod being a primary export, and before the nineteen seventies almost of Iceland's exports were fish. Meanwhile, Britain's fishing industry employs a little under twelve thousand fishers today, so about the same size as Iceland's industry, but because the UK's population and economy are so much larger, it's really a much smaller proportion of the UK economy as a whole. The UK has a population of sixty four million compared to three hundred and twenty three thousand in Iceland. Marine fishing is about zero point oh five percent of the British GDP, and all forms of fishing together make up about zero point zero seven percent of the British GDP. Prior to the nineteen fifties, though fishing was a much bigger part of the British economy, especially in fishing ports cities like Hull, Gramsby and Fleetwood. In these ports, fishing trawlers were the prime arey employer and most of the fishing fleet that sailed from these ports did what's known as distant water fishing, so boats would leave these ports in Britain and they would travel hundreds of miles to fish in the waters around Iceland. In addition to catching a lot of cod, Britain eight and continues to eat, for that matter, a lot of cod. In the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties, four d and thirty thousand tons of cod were being eaten in Britain annually, overwhelmingly in the form of fish and chips. Britain continues to eat more cod than anywhere else in the world, a third of the cod in the world, and of the cod caught in European waters. So yeah, the Iceland and Britain were united by the fact that there's lots of cod around Iceland and Brittain was eating almost all of it, almost all the cod because fish and chips, I mean, it's it's delicious and also kind of astounding just how much was being eaten. Another important piece of background information, and all of this story has to do with the idea of international waters and how nations get to decide which parts of the ocean are There's the idea that a nation with the coastline has rights to a certain amount of the ocean around it. Has existed for centuries, and a nation's territorial waters extend a certain distance past its coast and then beyond that our international waters. Starting in the seventeen hundreds in Europe and the America's, a nation's territorial waters typically extended about three miles past the coastline, although there were definitely exceptions, with nations claiming more or less. Prior to its independence in nineteen four, Iceland was a part of Denmark, and according to the Anglo Danish Territorial Waters Agreement, it, like so many other nations, followed that three mile limit. That agreement was set to expire in nineteen fifty one, But when Iceland became independent from Denmark, it got to work setting its own terms for where other nations could fish immediately. Iceland had two primary motivations for reevaluating its fishing boundaries. One was that fishing was so enormously critical to its own economy that it wanted to make sure its own fishing fleet had the greatest advantage. Iceland sort of viewed this situation as a zero sum game. Other nations that were taking fish out of the waters around Iceland were taking them from Iceland because Iceland had so few other industries or national or natural resources to add to its economy. The other was that Iceland was becoming increasingly concerned about the health of the fish stocks around it and the threat of overfishing, so banning other nations from fishing closer to its shores was a way to try to keep Icelandic fishers fishing while ideal lowering the risk of depleting those fish populations. As a result, on May fifteenth, nineteen fifty two, Iceland extended the line from three miles to four And this wasn't the first push of its territorial water since becoming independent, but it was the first extension that affected a part of the sea that Britain had been using for its fishing. Yes, some of the prior extension was more to the north, which was not as much of a British fishing ground. Britain was not happy about this change. There was more shelter available in bad weather three miles out compared to four miles out. And then, of course there was just the principle of the thing. Britain's who had been making their livelihoods through fishing for generations and who lived in port cities where fishing was the biggest industry were basically being shut out of a strip of the sea that they'd historically had access to. When Iceland said its new line at four miles, flags flew at half mast in British distant water fishing ports. The Grimsby Evening Telegraph called it black Thursday. In spite of this new law, the four mile zone around Iceland did not make that big of a difference to British distant distant water fishing boats. A lot of them had already been crossing the three mile line when fish were scarce beyond it. A number of captains and owners also thought that the fine that came with crossing that four mile line was worth the risk if it meant better fishing on the other side of the line. All in all, even though there was a bit of cat and mouse darting around the line, British captains and crews surrendered when they realized they were caught in ICELANDIC Coastguard personnel were always honest and faring court cases over illegal fishing. Aside from some tomfoolery, people on both sides of this dispute were generally respectful and professional about it. Yeah, and in spite of all the like the flying the flags that half mast and the s ring back and forth across the line where people weren't really supposed to be like, you know, when the coast Guard showed up and was like, you're not supposed to be here, they would have been like, yeah, you're you gottess. The UK also took the very reasonable course of action of taking their dispute with Iceland before the International Court of Justice. When Iceland's four mile limit was upheld, Britain responded by banning Icelandic fishing vessels from landing their fish in Britain. Since Britain, as we said earlier, was buying most of Iceland's cod, and I mean British British cod catches were not nearly enough to keep the nation supplied in fish and chips. This basically was an economic sanction sanction against Iceland, but Iceland did not back down and this was only the first of several times that Iceland would move its fishing boundary, and we're going to talk about where things stopped being so sort of cordial and respectful and started to really get ugly. After we have a brief sponsor break. In ninety eight, the international community participated in the first International Conference on the Law of the Sea. The u n's International Law Commission had been discussing and evaluating maritime international law for nearly a decade, but this was the first conference that was specifically devoted to international maritime law. Eighties six states participated in this conference. Fishing, we should point out, was certainly not the only thing being discussed at the conference. Resolutions were adopted regarding nuclear tests, radioactive pollution of the oceans, and conservation, and various smaller nations suggested a major expansion of the commonly used three mile limit between international and territorial waters. The new proposed limit a twelve mile economic exclusion zone around a nation's coast. Most larger nations resisted this idea for reasons ranging from economic unfairness to concerns that their navies could not effectively maneuver or patrol with that much of the sea off limits. However, when Iceland then expanded its exclusionary zone to twelve miles, and part of its argument was that that twelve miles was eventually going to be international law anyway. And while that previous move from three miles to four miles had been met with flags at half masted in Britain's port towns, the jump to twelve miles was genuinely alarming. The zone between four and twelve miles from Iceland's coast was prime fishing territory for Britain's distant water fishing fleet. Shutting Britain out of twelve miles around Iceland had the potential to completely disrupt the fishing industry. Aside from really genuine win concerns about the British economy, especially in these sports cities, Britain was also really frustrated on principle. I understand this. I'm a person who gets colossally frustrated on principle, as had been the case with that four mile line. The twelve mile line was cutting Brittain out of waters that it had historically had access to and felt entitled to. And then there was an emotional way to all of it, and the cities that were home to Britain's distant water fishing fleets. Fishing was really at the heart of the community and of people's identities. So pushing out distant water fishing felt like it was stripping people of their way of life and of something that they felt like was a core part of who they were. Also, there's the whole fish and chip thing again, which is also part of like the identity issue. Yes, Like in the United States, fish and chips and a lot of places they're just like they're just sort of stand pub food, right, But in the fifties and sixties and Britain, fish and chips was really a working class staple, and like chippies were places that that sold fish and chips, and like there's a whole cultural layer to the existence in the consumption of of fish and chips that um does not have the quite the same weight. And most of the United States, yeah uh, And the UK was not the only nation affected by this expansion in Iceland's territorial waters. Belgium, West Germany and the Faroe Islands were among the other nations fishing in that same area, But it was the British fishing fleet that was making the most use of it among the international community, and it was Britain that became the most vocal in wanting continued access to that four to twelve mile zone. Those cat and mouse shenanigans that had happened at the four mile line kicked up several role notches in the four to twelve mile zone around Iceland. As one might expect, Iceland deployed its Coastguard to try to enforce the policy, and it allowed officials to board British ships and arrest their crews for fishing in waters where they were not supposed to be. In response, Britain deployed ships from the Royal Navy to protect the trawlers, essentially mandating that the trawlers fishing areas where the Royal Navy was patrolling, and the trawlers used nets to try to keep Icelandic inspectors from boarding, as well as springing boarding parties with hoses and trying to use spears to puncture the rubber dighis the Coastguard used for boarding. When a trawler was boarded, they'd often call in the Royal Navy to assist, and on at least one occasion, the Royal Navy then refused to let the Icelandic Coast Guard officials go back to their own vessel, instead kept them on board as guests in quotation marks of the Crown. One boarding party was eventually put into a little boat off the coast of keef Levik and allowed to row back to shore there. And that's really irritated the people that were, uh, we're working at the NATO base in kef Levik, because they were like, what do you mean there is a British warship right there that just dropped you off in the water. Because Iceland had about six gun boats compared to the thirty seven Royal Navy ships that Britain had deployed, Iceland didn't really feel comfortable making a direct assault on the British force. Instead, Iceland kept thorough records of the names and numbers of all of the British ships that broke the twelve mile limit. I kind of love fighting it with bureaucracy and I don't even understand why. Yeah, yeah, this distribute wound up being settled with a compromise in nineteen sixty one. Britain ultimately agreed to respect the twelve mile limit and exchange for a three year period to phase out the distant water fishing in the twelve mile zone. Once this agreement was reached, Iceland destroyed all those records of who all had been illegally fishing in the twelve mile zone, which I also am kind of charmed by. Yes, it's like this is going on your permanent record. Okay, now we're cool. We could get rid of that permanent record. Uh. In the agreement, Iceland also acknowledged that it would continue to consider extending the border even further, but would give Britain advanced notice if this were to happen. Quote, the Icelandic Government will continue to work for the implementation of the al Thing Resolution of five May nineteen fifty nine regarding the extension of fisheries jurisdiction around Iceland, but shall give to the United Kingdom Government six months notice of such extension, and in case of a dispute in relation to such extension, the matter shall, at the request of either party, be referred to the International Court of Justice. Yes, those based referring to a resolution that had been put out a couple of years before about possibly having an even bigger exclusion zone. And then on July fourteenth of nineteen seventy one, the government of Iceland released a new policy statement which said, quote the fisheries agreements with the United Kingdom and the Federal German Republic I'll be terminated and a resolution be made about an extension of fishery limit up to fifty nautical miles from the baselines, effective not later than one September ninety two. So at this point we've gone from three miles to four miles, to twelve miles to fifty miles. Yeah, it's a big jump. I can imagine if you are part of the fishing industry, the knee jerk reaction could be irate at that point. Uh, And that would explain why this is where things got really really heated between the UK and Iceland. The United Kingdom once again took its dispute to the International Court of Justice in the Hague, which found in Britain's favor, but Iceland argued that the court did not have jurisdiction. Iceland was at this point incredibly frustrated and alarmed over the condition of its fishing stocks. Stocks of the icelandic herring had dropped precipitously almost to nothing, and Iceland was concerned that cod were headed for this same fate. They had made repeated calls for international discussions on conservation of fish stocks and sustainable fishing practices, and none of that had gotten enough attention for Iceland to really feel secure in the future of of a nation that was basically dependent on fishing. Like at this point and even still today in a lot of ways, if the if the fishing industry in Iceland is gone, Iceland as a nation cannot survive. And so even though there were some nations that were willing to talk about more conservation oriented fishing practices at this point in the seventies, Iceland was like, no, really, we will die as a nation if we don't look after these fish. And to make matters worse from the British point of view, also in ninety two, the United Kingdom joined the Common Market, and this was basically an approach by the European Economic Community that gave all its members equal access to the territorial waters of all the other members after a grace period. Iceland, not being a member of the European Economic Community, was not affected, but the UK was concerned about what it would mean for its own fishing industry to give the rest of the European economic community access to its fishing grounds the UK, to the UK fishing fleet, those waters off the coast of Iceland became even more important. So the UK once again deployed the Royal Navy to protect its distant water trawlers. And during the previous dispute, the trawlers were basically supposed to stick with the navy, and now they were trying to do it the other way around. The trawlers would go whether where they needed to fish, and the Navy would follow them to protect them. In other words, the UK had decided not to respect that fifty mile line, and we're going to talk about the fallout from that a little bit more after we once again paused for a word from a sponsor. The first day that British ships made their way across the newly established fifty mile line around Iceland, they covered up their names and numbers on their ships and hoisted pirate flags. Iceland's coast Guard was mostly amused at this course of action, because at this point they had been patrolling these waters with these British trawlers for years, and they were sort of like, do you think we really can't recognize your ship? Without the name on it, like, we know what your ship looks like, we know who you are. It's the clark can't Glasses disguise of the sea. It was absolutely the Clark can't glasses to sect the guys of the sea. And this time around things really did start though, as much as we're laughing now, they became very serious and physical between Iceland and the UK. Towards the end of the previous dispute, Iceland had developed a trawling net cutter, and this was essentially a minesweeper modified with a road grading blade that was dragged through the water behind a boat so when it hit the high tension trawling wires, it would cut right through them. This was the part I learned at a museum in Iceland where I was like, oh, the Icelandic Coast Guard was just cutting through trawling nuts. That's fascinating. However, the cruise of the British trawlers were horrified and alarmed at this invention. The wires of these trawling nuts, I mean, these are enormous nets that are under the water and they fill up with fish. They are under a whole lot of tension. So it was within the realm of possibility that a wire that had been cut could re bound and literally cut someone in half. Iceland insisted that this cutting was happening far enough below the surface of the water that this was not a risk, and there wasn't a risk to human life because all of this energy that was being dissipated when the wire was cut basically was was dissipated in the traveling through the water. Um Even so, even if if there wasn't a risk, and I think you can argue that either way, the loss of the trawling net itself, and of the time and energy that you had put into putting it together and deploying it, and whatever time you had spent fishing with it basically meant that people were losing a lot of work and equipment in this process. The Icelandic Coastguard was vastly outnumbered. It had six Coastguard vessels plus two Polish built trawlers retrofitted for the purpose. Britain, on the other hand, had a total of twenty nine ships earmarked for the purpose, was six to nine of them in Icelandic water at any given time. In addition to those frigates were seven supply ships, nine tug boats and three artillery ships to protect its forty trawlers. Soon, in spite of being so heavily outnumbered, Icelandic vessels started intentionally ramming British Royal Navy ships and trawlers. This actually there was one collision that did lead to the death of an Icelandic officer. Britain responded by trying to update its trawler fleet by radio about the positions of Iceland's vessels, So the Icelandic Coastguards started recording Britain's transmissions on the positions of where the Icelandic vessels were and then replaying them at a later date to so confusion. When Britain realized that that was happening, their ships began to spread the word by radio to disregard the prior message, so the Icelandic Coast Guard recorded that too to replay it later on. It's a a ghost arms at that point where they're doing like these false sounds. Escapes May nine seventy three and Icelandic ship shelled a British trawler. Also in May, Iceland banned British planes from landing at Keflavik Air Base. That October, the UK and Iceland finally agreed to limit the number of British ships in icelandic waters, limit the size of the catch, and thankfully stop ramming each other. So this is kind of an uneasy piece that lasted for a couple of years. But in nineteen seventy five, Iceland extended its maritime border again to two hundred miles, so now we've gone three four twelve fifty two hundred. Once again, Britain refused to to respect yet another expansion in the exclusionary zone around Iceland. Negotiating negotiations really quickly broke down. Iceland threatened to close the NATO Basic Kevlovik entirely and to end diplomatic relations with Britain. The international community became really alarmed. All of these conflicts were running parallel to the Cold War, and there were some concerns that Iceland, which was strategically placed between Russia and North America, might, under all of this pressure and resistance from Britain, just abandoned its other diplomatic ties in favor of allying with Russia. Eventually, after numerous rammings and even some shelling caused damage to ships on both sides of the conflict, the Secretary General of NATO doctor Joseph Lunz had to mediate an agreement between Iceland and the UK, and that was signed in June of ninety six. It upheld Iceland's two hundred mile exclusion zone and it specified that Britain could have a maximum of twenty four trawlers in that zone at any given time. Conservation zones were established where no fishing would be allowed. After six months, there would be no more fishing in the two hundred mile zone. When those six months were up, Britain's distant water fishing fleet was effectively put out of business. Trawler owners were given some restitution for the loss of their businesses, and the government had reassured the distant water fishing industry to expect retraining for other work as well as compensation for basically having been made redundant. However, that support did not actually materialize in Britain's Fishermen's Association was formed to start fighting for compensation, and this was a battle that went on until July of two thousand, when a settlement of twenty six billion pounds was was earmarked for people who had been put out of work. As a consequence of this international agreement, fish stocks began to be depleted anyway, with Iceland needing to send boats farther afield, which turned into conflict with other nations as well, particularly Russia and Norway. Yeah, there's stocks have rebounded a lot now, but if if you look at sharts of the fish populations around Iceland, there's like a decline over the sixties and then a cliff and then they are very alarmingly low and then they start to recover. Uh. There's also a documentary. It was actually an Icelandic documentary, but it aired on the BBC, and one of the Icelandic officials that was interviewed for it talked about going to Britain visiting some of these ports that had been the distant water fishing ports, seeing all of these decommissioned ships just sort of derelict there in the port, and it reconfirming for him. Okay, seriously, we have got to we have got to conserve our fishing stocks because as a result of our trying to do that, all of these people were put out of work and lost their livelihoods um which I like I thought was an interesting sentiment to come back to you because at that point it was years after the decisions had all been made. I like the part with the pirate flags, that's my favorite part well, and there's also there were things about like the British ships basically throwing potatoes at people, uh I mean at the at the Icelandic ships. So this documentary documentary is really super interesting because you hear from people who were who were on these ships and we're uh, we're making living, making their living fishing, and it really does seem like, especially through the first the first couple of incidents where it moved from three miles to four and from four to twelve, that there was kind of a weird spirit of camaraderie where where the British, the British fisherman would be like, uh, yeah, we're gonna do this anyway, and also throw potatoes at you, and Iceland was like, that's not cool, but we're gonna totally be fair when we arrest you and take you to court for your unsanctioned fishing activities. Um. It definitely though, just just ruined the economy of some particular ports cities. And then when you look at Britain's fishing industry today, it is completely different than it was up through nineteen seventy and also a lot of the fish that used to be UH used to be fished through distant water fishing fleets are instead now raised through aquacultures that are basically farmed instead of UM having this whole international agreement to send trawlers to other international waters to try to fish. Yeah show, thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. Since this episode is out of the archive, if you heard an email address or a Facebook U r L or something similar over the course of the show that could be obsolete now. Our current email address is History Podcast at i heart radio dot com. Our old house stuff works email address no longer works, and you can find us all over social media at missed in History and you can subscribe to our show on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, the I heart Radio app, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. 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