740.00111A Ports/35
The British Embassy to the Department of State
Aide-Mémoire
The sinkings of British merchant ships by enemy aircraft have now reached almost as serious proportions as sinkings by submarines. The majority of these sinkings are due to the extended use by the enemy of Focke Wulf aircraft, the great endurance of which permits them to operate far out into the Atlantic. There are also indications that other long range bombers are being diverted to attacks upon British shipping in the Western Approaches and that air action in this area is to be greatly intensified.
The difficulties of the British authorities in meeting this threat arise from the fact that the area of the attacks is well beyond the range of the British shore based fighters while the use of aircraft carriers to protect British convoys is at present out of the question. Nor can British merchant vessels be spared for conversion into auxiliary aircraft carriers. Furthermore, the British authorities have not at present anything approaching a sufficient number of anti-aircraft guns [Page 388] available for British merchant vessels to enable them to defend themselves effectively against attacks which are carried out without warning and which develop with great rapidity. In consequence His Majesty’s Government have decided to adopt the only possible course open to them and are in process of equipping a considerable number of British merchant vessels with fighter aircraft.
His Majesty’s Government appreciate that difficulties may arise in neutral ports as to the right of ships so equipped to be regarded as merchantmen and as to the position of the aircraft and their crews. His Majesty’s Government feel however that the case for treating these ships as defensively armed merchantmen is strong. The defensive aircraft which will be carried on the ships will be of the ordinary shore based fighter type and once the aircraft has been launched the pilot will have to attempt to reach land or to land in the water and accept the loss of his aircraft. It is clear from the hazardous nature of the pilots’ task that the aircraft would only be used if the ships were in imminent danger of attack. In fact the purpose of the aircraft would be purely defensive and indeed any opportunity of abusing this purpose would not in practice exist. His Majesty’s Government therefore feel that these aircraft are not different in principle from the defensive guns already fitted in the majority of British merchant vessels. They constitute a part of the defensive equipment of the ship and are a logical development of the self-defence of the ship consequent upon the methods of aerial warfare which have been introduced by the enemy.
Moreover, such defensive aircraft, being merely accessories of merchant ships, are not in the view of the British authorities within the rules applicable to the entry of belligerent aircraft into neutral ports. In His Majesty’s Government’s eyes these aircraft should be treated as being in the same position as the guns on a defensively armed merchant ship. His Majesty’s Government feel too that if necessary they could invoke the principle that aircraft carried upon warships, so long as they remain in contact with their parent ship, have the same status in a neutral port as the particular ship to which they are attached, and argue by analogy that these defensive aircraft have the same status as the merchant ship on which they are carried.
The crew of these defensive aircraft will belong to the Royal Navy or the Royal Air Force but will be entered upon the ships’ books as members of the crew. They will be considered as being in uniform whilst at sea but will be supplied with plain clothes for wearing in port. Their position will in fact be precisely similar to that of the service crews manning guns in defensively armed merchant ships and in regard to which no difficulties have been made in neutral ports.
[Page 389]In the light of the circumstances described above His Majesty’s Government trust that the United States Government will feel able to permit the entry into United States ports of these fighter-equipped British merchant ships without difficulty. The question is one to which, it is hardly necessary to say, His Majesty’s Government attach great importance.