During the WWII the United Kingdom occupied the Faroe islands as an response to the German occupation of Denmark. It was on 12 April 1940 that 2 British Royal Navy destroyers arrived at Tórshavns harbour and was followed by an Royal Navy cruiser the day after.
After meetings between the President of the Løgting, the Danish prefect and the new British Consul to the Faroe Islands, the president accepted the British occupation terms.
The occupation ended in May 1945, and the last troops had left the islands in September the same year. But was in now thinkable to go back to being an county to Denmark. No did most of the people think, and after an referendum in 1946 The Faroe islands got there autonomy in 1948, but continued to be and part of the Danish realm.
Good parts whit the occupation
There was actually some parts of the occupation that was positive for the country.
- It led to the Faroe islands autonomy
- The Faroe flag got recognized
- The airport in Vágar was built by British Royal engineers
Bad parts whit the occupation
Of course war and occupations had its drawbacks, a lot of them of course. Luckily the full scale war never got to the islands, and therefore the effects was kept small.
- About 200 seamen was killed during WWII. There ships was bombed, sunk by submarines or hit by drifting sea mines.
- Occasional attacks was done by the German Luftwaffe.
- Left-hand driving was in force during the occupation.
What happened whit all the war material after the war?
Well the airport was abandoned, and then reopened as an civilian airport in 1963. A lot of the military installations was cleared of all the equipment and the buildings was left empty. Some was kept functionally, like the LORAN station at Eggjarnar in Suðuroy.
The canons here at Nes was dismantled, and one canon was thrown in the sea and the other used as filling material in the new harbour in Toftir. In 1990 one of the canons was rescued, unclear if it was the one from the sea or the one from the harbour, and mounted at the original bunker.