740.0011 Pacific War/3708
The Swiss Minister ( Bruggmann ) to the Secretary of State
Th. 1 Thailand
The Minister of Switzerland presents his compliments to The Honorable, The Secretary of State, and has the honor to submit a communication from the Government of Thailand which has been received from the Federal Political Department in Berne, with the request that it be transmitted to the Government of the United States:
“In air raids about the end of 1943 and January 1944 Anglo-American aeroplanes dropped bombs on Chulalongkon Hospital, Saowapha, on the Pasteur Institute of the Red Cross Bangrak Hospital and two mental disease hospitals. Such humanitarian establishments cannot be said in any way to be military objectives and the indiscriminate bombing thereof is not only a violation of the Geneva Convention [Page 1322] of 192925 but also of the principles of humanity. His Majesty’s Government therefore enters a strong protest against the unjustifiable act of destruction above mentioned.”
The Minister would be grateful to The Honorable, The Secretary of State, for an acknowledgment of this communication.26
- International Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick of Armies in the Field, signed July 27, 1929, Foreign Relations, 1929, vol. i, p. 321. Presumably, reference to Article 6 was intended.↩
- Acknowledgment was made by the Secretary of State on February 14.↩