861.24/905: Telegram
The Second Secretary of Embassy in the Soviet Union (Thompson) to the Secretary of State
Moscow, May 7,
1942—4 p.m.
[Received 9:41 p.m.]
[Received 9:41 p.m.]
144. For McCabe from Faymonville.
- 1.
- Russians emphatically object to proposal to cease loading ship for northern ports until ice conditions improve and enemy threats decrease.84 Russians have had much experience in northern navigation. They state that in skirting ice pack in spring and summer, hazards of navigation increase relatively more for submarines than they increase for surface vessels. Russians reason that menace from enemy submarines on account of ice hazards and narrowing of channel is therefore relatively less now than it was during winter. Russian opinion holds that other reasons than narrowing of channel must exist for request to the American Government to cease loading ships, and I have been asked the direct question whether we will escort convoys from Iceland to North Russia if the British are afraid to do so.
- 2.
- It is desirable to overcome suspicion that the British, using ice conditions as a pretext, may have persuaded us to use elsewhere supplies needed by the Soviet Union. If new strategic plans actually require reallocation of munitions, suspicion here can best be overcome by taking Russians into consultation on general strategy. Please give me all facts which I may use in this connection.
- 3.
- Commissar of Foreign Trade85 makes following three requests:
- First, do not cease loading for northern ports.
- Second, send sufficient ships to permit 3 convoys of 30 ships each to arrive at northern ports during May, instead of only 2 convoys as desired by British.
- Third, by all means send more ships also Iranian ports but increase number to 20 instead of to 12 and do so without decreasing number of American ships to northern ports.
- [Faymonville]
- Thompson
- In a telegram drafted on April 30, 1942, for the information of Ambassador Standley in the Soviet Union, but which finally was not sent, the difficulties encountered in shipping on the northern route, about which the Soviet Government had been informed, were in part explained: “During recent weeks the Arctic ice drifts have come so unusually far south that between them and the northern coast of Norway the open sea lane is more narrow than it has been for many years. The Germans apparently through the use of planes and sea craft based on Norway have been able to police this lane and inflict severe losses. The risks involved in present conditions in sending through large convoys or ships without adequately armed escorts are out of proportion to the aid which such convoys or ships could render the Soviet Union.…”↩
- Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan.↩