History of the North Sea intense diplomatic crisis. The crisis was defused when Russia was defeated by the Japanese and agreed to pay compensation to the fishermen. During the First World War, Great Britain's Grand Fleet based at Scapa Flow and Germany's Kaiserliche Marine faced each other across the North Sea. Due to its numerical advantage in dreadnoughts, the Grand Fleet obtained Naval superiority and was able to establish a sea blockade of Germany's coast. The goal of the blockade was to deny Germany access to maritime trade including war materials and to guarantee the undisturbed ferrying of British troops. Because of the strong defensive
British occupation of the Faroe Islands and Faroese women; the British Consul, Frederick Mason (1913–2008) also married a local woman, Karen Rorholm. The Faroe Islands suffered occasional attacks by German "Luftwaffe" aircraft in the course of the war, but an invasion was never attempted. Drifting sea mines proved to be a considerable problem and resulted in the loss of numerous fishing boats and their crews. The trawler "Nýggjaberg" was sunk on 28 March 1942 near Iceland; 21 Faroese seamen were killed in the worst single loss of Faroese lives in the war. During the war, Faroese ships had to hoist the Faroese flag and paint FAROES