862.24/647: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Leahy) to the Secretary of State
[Received April 4—3 p.m.]
497. Reference Department’s 205, March 24, 8 p.m. and Embassy’s 454, March 27, 10 a.m. We have received the following note dated April 2, 1942, from the Foreign Office regarding the landing and refueling of Italian planes in French North Africa:
“In a note dated March 28 the Embassy of the United States called the attention of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the fact that the French authorities were permitting Italian military planes to refuel in North Africa.
The Embassy added that if the Government of the United States had been aware of these deliveries at the time it was decided to resume the supplying of North Africa it would have hesitated to give its consent in principle to this measure. The Federal Government is [Page 163] however willing to await information from the French Government concerning the facts above mentioned ‘before reconsidering its position’.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has the honor to inform the Embassy that it is a fact that on March 7 five Italian planes landed on the aviation field at Algiers—Maison Blanche.
The local authorities, anxious to obtain the immediate departure of these planes, were obliged to furnish them with the necessary fuel. This, amounting to about 10,000 liters, represents the strictly indispensable quantity necessary for the return voyage of these planes to Italy.
This incident was the subject on March 11 of a formal protest by the French Government to the Italian Armistice Commission at Turin.”
The Embassy learns confidentially from a competent official in the Foreign Office that the protest referred to in the final paragraph of the note quoted above was of a firm character. Admiral Duplat apparently informed the Italian General Vaccamaggiolini that in the event that further landings of this kind were to take place, the French authorities would be forced to take appropriate measures with regard to the Italian planes and their crews, “measures which might go as far as internment”.
Rochat informed us a few days ago that he was under the impression that the five Italian planes in question had been forced to land in Algeria as they had encountered a violent storm off the north African coast.
Repeated to Murphy.