• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

One of the great changes in the postwar world was that small nations were making themselves heard as never before through international forums, most notably the United Nations. The idea of expanding sovereignty into the ocean was catching on. In a 1973 meeting of the UN Seabed Committee, thirty-four nations, mostly Latin American, African, and Asian, endorsed the concept of a 200-mile zone. The only northern European nations to endorse this were Iceland and Norway, both of which were fast becoming leaders in the cod trade.

In 1974, Icelandic cod stocks appeared to be in trouble again, in spite of the fifty-mile limit. The percentage of large cod in the catch had declined dramatically. Icelandic biologists claimed that a decade earlier eighteen-year-old cods were commonplace, whereas by 1974 it was rare to find a cod older than twelve. This meant the reproductive capacity of the stock was greatly reduced. Even British scientists agreed with these findings.

One more time, on October 15, 1975, citing diminishing cod stocks and the need for conservation measures, Iceland extended its limit, this time to 200 miles. And once again, all foreign trawlers sailed outside the new zone except the British and, this time, the West Germans. They were going to do it all over again.

It was to be the shortest and meanest of the three wars. In one incident in December 1975, a British tug reported that an Icelandic Coast Guard vessel fired two shots, neither of which hit. In five months, there were thirty-five ramming incidents as the Icelandic Coast Guard cut forty-six British and nine German trawls. Both sides were becoming practiced at the arcane skill of friendly naval battles. British foreign secretary James Callaghan told the home press, “Both sides in the conflict are showing valor, but there is no need for anyone to show their virility.”

Negotiations were also intense. “The Icelanders are, by any standards, very difficult to deal with,” reported the London Financial Times. Iceland was not going to compromise. At one point, the nation actually severed diplomatic relations with Britain. But NATO continued to pursue talks. Jón Jónsson, longtime director of Iceland’s Marine Research Institute and one of the negotiators for the third Cod War, said, “Between scientists it was a very friendly cod war. The English are our best enemies.” He recalled that a British negotiator once jokingly suggested that no trawls be cut the following Thursday because there was a program he wanted to watch on television. Jónsson fondly recalled the good travel tips he received for his upcoming vacation, when he and his wife toured Cornwall.

Although the British did not think the future of their entire economy was at risk, they had much at stake. Leaders of the trawler industry and chip shop guilds, known as fish fryer associations, warned that the entire British fishing industry was about to collapse. The great cod ports of Hull, Grimsby, and Fleetwood were in precipitous decline. The merchants who bought from the trawlers and sold wholesale were dependent on Icelandic cod. Between the end of the second Cod War and 1976, the number of wholesale merchants in Hull had dropped from 250 to 87. Britain’s allies repeatedly suggested that the problem could be solved by British consumers abandoning their beloved cod for other species. The West Germans negotiated a truce with Iceland in which they were given redfish quotas as compensation for being barred from catching Icelandic cod. The West German government told the British that the entire problem could be solved if British households would learn to eat redfish and pollock. The European Economic Community pointed out that blue whiting was abundant off of Scotland. “If the British could be brought to eat it, the whole cod war would become unnecessary,” said the Financial Times in May 1976. But the British wanted to eat cod, not whiting or pollock, and they detested redfish.

Jónsson described the London negotiating