SS Springfjord was a cargo steamship that was launched in Norway for a British shipping company in 1939, taken over by Nazi Germany in 1940, re-taken by the United Kingdom in 1945 and destroyed by the CIA in Guatemala in 1954.

In 1954 the CIA was engineering a coup d'état in Guatemala to replace its elected government with a dissident Guatemalan colonel, Carlos Castillo Armas.

[3] Early on the morning of 27 June 1954,[4] the day that the CIA coup forced Guatemala's elected President Jacobo Árbenz to resign and flee into exile, Springfjord was under charter to the US shipping company Grace Line and was at Puerto San José, Guatemala loading a mixed cargo[5] that included coffee[4] and 976 bales of cotton.

[4] Schoup, flying a Lockheed P-38M Lightning heavy fighter aircraft[7] with no markings,[4] attacked Springfjord with napalm bombs and set her on fire.

[6] In the UK House of Commons on 8 November 1954 the Labour MP Marcus Lipton asked whether Col. Castillo's military junta had paid any compensation for Springfjord's destruction.

[10] A month later no settlement had been reached, so on 8 December 1954 Lipton asked "...why, in South America, this Government appears to be so flabby in protecting British interests?

[11] Robin Turton replied that the Government was not responsible for preparing the claim, and that "legal gentlemen do take a long time over these matters.

[6] It claims that the UK replied on 1 March "requesting clarification as to whether the $900,000 was intended to cover only the ship and that portion of the cargo insured in Britain.

[6] The CIA's 1955 memorandum quotes someone, whose identity is erased from the published copy, as advising that "it was doubtful whether the matter could be settled for $900,000" and that A more realistic figure is stated to be $1,500,000 to $2,000,000.

[12] CIA Headquarters replied that "additional funds would be made available if necessary but it was added that all possibilities be exhausted before authorizing Castillo to make a settlement".

[12] In July 1957 Col. Castillo was assassinated by one of his own guards, and after a series of short-term successors General Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes became president of Guatemala.

A memorandum dated 25 July 1958 from JC King, who was CIA Chief, Western Hemisphere Division states that the claimants' lawyer, Hafael Valls, visited Gen. Ydígoras, was initially well-received but subsequently was expelled from Guatemala.

[15] Eighteen months after King's secret memo there was still no compensation payment, so on 10 February 1960 Marcus Lipton raised the question in the Commons again.

[16] Allan stated that "At one time the Guatemalan Government intimated that they would be prepared to pay some compensation, but the amount they offered was totally unacceptable to the claimants.