Office of the Historian

740.0011 European War 1939/31155/8: Telegram

The Ambassador in France (Bullitt) to the Secretary of State

Paris, May 17, 1940—3 p.m.
[Received May 17—1:30 p.m.]

720. Personal for the President. Reynaud and the Minister for Air and Mandel81 have all spoken to me unofficially about the need to obtain American pilots as soon as possible.

I am told that if the Government of the United States would permit reserve pilots to resign their reserve commissions with the understanding that if they should survive the present war they would be reinstated and if the French should establish at Windsor, Ontario, a recruiting bureau which would offer the franc equivalent of $400 per month per pilot plus expenses it is almost certain that a thousand pilots would desire to enlist in the French Army at once.

Would you have any objection to such procedure? This question is entirely personal, unofficial and off the record.

Bullitt
  1. Georges Mandel, French Minister of Colonies, appointed Minister of the Interior May 18, 1940.↩