Greenland has made a landmark decision by voting for self-rule (report, November 26). But although it seems a remote place, much of our weather is influenced by Greenland and plays a crucial part in weather forecasting across the North Atlantic and Western Europe. And in the Second World War it became a battleground between the Allies and Germans for establishing weather stations.

The Germans made repeated attempts to smuggle in weather teams and equipment, but ultimately most were either captured or destroyed by the Allies. However, they did relay enough weather information to plan the deadly U-boat operations in the Atlantic. An intensely cold northern winter of 1940-41 forced both sides to rely on sporadic aircraft weather flights, and the Germans also used U-boats to relay weather reports.

By 1941 the British patrolled the Greenland Sea, and scored a big coup by capturing the weather ship München with its Enigma code books, the first advance in breaking the German naval codes.

Greenland also established its own army of 26 men, the smallest army to fight in the war, and began patrols along its eastern coastline. In March 1943 a four-man sled team discovered a force of 27 Germans in northern Greenland. In the ensuing fight one of the Greenland team escaped and made a heroic 600 mile trek over the ice to report the Germans’ position, which was destroyed in an air attack. By the end of the war the Germans could rely only on automated weather stations in Greenland.