NAZIS IN DAKAR

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 291, 9 December 1941, Page 4

NAZIS IN DAKAR

THE GESTAPO HEEL FRENCH OBEY ORDERS (What be uw and heard about German influence in Dakar, strategic French West African port, is related here by the •Upper of a Norwegian merchant ship which recently escaped from Dakar alter fourteen months of internment. In an earlier dispatch he told the details of the ship's escape.) (By a Norwegian Sea Captain.) LONDON. Although we were prevented from leaving Dakar harbour for 14 months our comings and goings from ship to shore were not greatly interfered with, and I went ashore almost every day. . It cannot be said that conditions m Dakar were normal, but there was remarkably little evidence that the people were suffering from war. Everything was going on in the real French manner-r-crowds strolling in the cool of the evening, the cafes well patronised—but under the French superficial veneer could be detected the unmistakable hand of the Gestapo. The administration of Dakar was clearly inspired by the Germans, and, in fact, it was German influence which was telling the French what to do or not do. We Norwegians were not greatly inclined to mix with the Vichy Frenchmen and generally kept to ourselves, but one Norwegian colleague who was less standoffish assured me that he had met numbers of Germans in Dakar. I myself cannot say that I met any. Under Strict Control Living conditions were strictly controlled in Dakar. No radio listentog was permitted except broadcasts from French, German and Italian stations. Our own radio cabin was sealed up, so we were unable to use our mam operating set. The French did not remove the set, but merely sealed up the radio cabin. We had reason to be grateful for this when the ship eventually made a getaway.

, Food was plentiful. There was lots of meat and fish but, strangely, bread was only obtainable by ration card and this bread was really 60 per. cent white bean meal. It did not taste too good. I was struck by the friendly attitude of the civilians. They were ready to make friends, though we were not inclined to fraternise. But there was no suggestion of any ex. pression of sympathy for General ae Gaulle (Free French leader) or the Allies. In this could be detected the Gestapo-controlled police. Occasionally we heard that, someone who. had been, expressing the mbst harmless pro-Allied views," or even merely complaining about German; contacts, had mysteriously disappeared to some concentration canip in the hinterland of Dakar. The officials, too, were friendly enough and it could easily be seen they were anxious for us to see their side, but, by God, it was difficult for us Norwegians, whose country had been over-run by the Hun, to see any side but the Allied. Strikingly Pro-German The officials were all strikingly pro-German and if you tried to draw them out they would relapse into complete silence. I saw no Americans at Dakar except the Consular staff of four, but I heard that some Americans had arrived in an 18,000-ton French tanker which brought a large cargo of gasoline from the United States. The- Americans landed from the tanker to superyise the proper allocation of the gasoline. The tanker thereafter was permitted to proceed to Casablanca, presumably by .the British, blockading ships, and I. heard that the tanker eventually put in at Algiers. lam now hoping to go to sea again soon in a Norwegian ship on Allied business. ■Hie French tanker was the Scheherezade, one of the largest tankers in the world. It was announced late in May that, at the express desire of the American State Department, the British authorities had released the ship, which was carrying supplies to the Vichy authorities in West and North Africa, after intercepting it in the south Atlantic.—Auckland Star and N.A.N .A.