The gayest invasion of World War II was Britain's raid on Spitsbergen (TIME, Sept. 15). News which Britain let out last week established that fact and by implication a good deal more about the invasion which was undertaken to thwart German plans to seize valuable mines.
At Spitsbergen the British blew up the coal mines, fired the coal piles, destroyed the coal-loading machinery, burned the oil supplies, killed all the cattle. They also removed the entire civilian population, including the Russians who mined 500,000 tons of coal annually for the Soviet Arctic Fleet, and outnumbered Norwegians in Spitsbergen two-to-one.
Any Britons...
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