Office of the Historian

851.48/317a: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Chargé in Germany (Morris)61

Washington, April 12, 1941.

1062. The American Red Cross has chartered from the French Line the S. S. Ile de Ré and the M. S. Leopold L. D., under French [Page 148] flag and registry, to transport flour and milk concentrates from New York to Marseille for distribution in unoccupied France by the American Red Cross as a gift from the American people. Both vessels are expected to sail from New York about April 16 and the French Ambassador has assured the Red Cross that they will proceed unarmed and without convoy and that the French Government is undertaking to notify the belligerent governments regarding the details of their outward and return voyages.

You will please bring this matter to the attention of the Government to which you are accredited, pointing out this Government’s interest in the voyages of these two vessels which are proceeding to France on a humanitarian mission.

Inform the Department by telegraph when notification has been delivered. State cost reply.

Hull

  1. The same telegram was sent on the same date to the American Missions in Italy (No. 265), France (No. 314), Greece (No. 143), Yugoslavia (No. 89), and the United Kingdom (No. 1236), with the addition of the following paragraph to United Kingdom message only:

    “Likewise inform Netherlands, Belgian, Norwegian, and Polish Governments.”

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