852.00/8338
The Ambassador in Spain (Bowers), Then in France, to the Secretary of State
[Received August 9.]
Sir: I have the honor to report that Sir Robert Hodgson84 recalled from Burgos with General Franco’s reply to the British protests against the deliberate bombing of British ships is returning to Burgos with instructions to settle the final details of the Commission to be set up to examine the individual cases. The Prime Minister has announced in the Commons that while Burgos has insisted that the bombing of the British ships was not deliberate, the British Government cannot reconcile this denial with positive knowledge that the planes have descended to a short distance above the ships, made many attempts, and then machine-gunned the decks. In truth the day after Mr. Chamberlain announced that Sir Robert Hodgson would return, Franco planes, unquestionably Italian, sank the British steamer Dellwyn after repeated attempts, killing the Danish observation officer on board, and this was done in the presence of a British war ship which for the first time in British history under such circumstances failed to act. The fact that the evidence is to be in secret, kept from the public, is resented by the British ship owners.
Mr. Thompson, an associate of Mr. Eden, who has had charge of the British Embassy here for months, and whose despatches have not been in harmony with the pro-Franco policy of Mr. Chamberlain, has been recalled and given another assignment which is a promotion. However, Mr. O’Malley, who was in Mexico, has been sent as his successor. I have had Mr. O’Malley to lunch at the house and I find that while he knows absolutely nothing about the Spanish quarrel his prejudices against the Government to which he is accredited are most violent.
Respectfully yours,
- British diplomat, appointed agent to the Spanish Nationalist Government, November 1937.↩