Office of the Historian

881.00/2400: Telegram

The Chargé at Tangier (Childs) to the Secretary of State

Tangier, January 30, 1943—9 p.m.
[Received January 31—8:10 a.m.]

173. Our 10, January 23 and 11, January 27 to Madrid (repeated to Department as Tangier’s nos. 157, January 29, and 158, January 29) and 168, January 29.20

Major Bernadoni who has just returned from Melilla reports Yague21 returned there late on the 28th. General Orgaz22 returned to Tetuán yesterday.

Yague was most friendly when receiving Bernadoni and gave no indication he was leaving. He telephoned Tetuán and requested permission to remove the restrictions placed on our internees and to send them to Tetuán preliminary to their despatch to Spain.

[Page 732]

This afternoon the High Commissariat telephoned that beginning February 2 the 54 officers and men at Tauima will be flown in groups of 12 or 13 to Madrid in the personal plane of Orgaz which he has made available for this purpose. Meanwhile our 6 internees still at Xauen and the 4 British internees there will be flown from Tetuán to Madrid as soon as a special plane coming from Spain arrives which is expected imminently. Our 4 internees receiving medical treatment there and the 6 British here will be flown to Spain after those mentioned above have been evacuated.

Sent to the Department; repeated to Madrid.

Childs
  1. Telegram No. 168 not printed.↩
  2. Commanding General at Melilla.↩
  3. Lt. Gen. Luis Orgaz, Spanish High Commissioner in Morocco and Commander of the Spanish Forces in the Spanish Zone of Morocco.↩