740.0011 European War 1939/2986: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Bullitt) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 15—10:02 a.m.]
665. Personal for the President. Paul Reynaud asked me to come to the Foreign Office this morning at 10:15. When I called he said that he wished to keep me and through me you fully informed personally as to the developments at the front. The situation continued to be one of the utmost gravity. The greatest battle in history was in progress in the region of Sedan. The Germans had crossed the Meuse at many points north of Sedan.
This morning at 6 o’clock Daladier75 had telephoned to him and had stated that the French troops positively could not hold out today against the masses of tanks and airplanes which were being launched against them and that the battle certainly would be lost quickly unless the troops could be protected from German attacks from the air.
He, Reynaud, had telephoned immediately to Churchill76 in London and had stated that since the Germans had broken through into open country where there were no fortifications whatever on the most direct [Page 221] route to Paris and since there was nothing to oppose the floods of German planes and tanks except ordinary infantrymen and artillery the war might be lost in the course of a few days and in his opinion would be lost unless the British should send their airplanes from England at once.
Churchill, Reynaud said, had screamed at him that there was no chance of the war being lost and he, Reynaud, had replied that Churchill knew as well as he knew him that so long as he, Reynaud, should remain Prime Minister France would fight to the bitter end. It was his duty however to tell Churchill the facts. Churchill thereupon promised to call together at the earliest possible moment the War Cabinet and attempt to persuade the War Cabinet to promise to send the British pursuit planes which were being kept in England for the protection of factories to be sent at once to France to join in the battle of the Meuse.
Reynaud added that General Giraud had been recalled from Antwerp to take command of the French troops in the Sedan sector.
Reynaud said that the French planes were outnumbered almost 10 to 1 and he implored me once more to ask you if it might not be possible by any means whatsoever to obtain new supplies of planes from the United States. I answered that you were as aware of the need as he was and that it was no lack of desire to help but simply the fact that the planes did not exist.
He then suggested that the planes of other types than those which the French had bought hitherto might be available in small quantities and asked if it might not be possible to obtain such planes. I replied that his own representative in Washington Colonel Jacquin knew better than anyone else what could be bought in America and that he had only to order Jacquin to act in order to obtain every plane available. He said that the difficulty was that Jacquin was not aware of the extreme gravity of the situation. I said that he should be informed.
Reynaud went on to say that the information from Italy indicated that Mussolini was preparing to attack almost immediately.
He repeated his request for old American destroyers. Will you please let me know if you can do anything about this matter?
I communicated to Reynaud your views that aviators should be trained in Canada and not in the United States. I added that you would be glad to keep in close touch with the matter and suggested that since the training was to be carried out in Canada the best way to organize it would probably be to have Lord Lothian77 call on you to make certain that nothing was done which would conflict with your desires.
[Page 222]I assume that when you said to me over the telephone yesterday that “the boat was all right” you meant that there was no objection to sending an aircraft carrier to take planes which had already been set up. Please cable me a confirmation of this immediately.
In concluding our conversation Reynaud said that the French counter-attacks against the German “hernia” in the Sedan region had not been successful either in cutting it off or reducing it. On the contrary the “hernia” was growing hour by hour.
The situation could not be more grave.