USED BY AXIS

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 13790, 6 November 1942, Page 6

USED BY AXIS

FRENCH NAVAL UNITS

Guarding Colonial Cargoes Hitler-Darlan Treaty One of the main reasons that the French fleet has not been handed over to the Nazis is that, if they were to do so, the men of Vichy would lose their best, bargaining club, states a writer in the "Christian Science Monitor." •

An alleged treaty between Hitler and Admiral Jean Darlan concerning the use of the French fleet, was published in May. 1941, by the British press, but has not been confirmed by any reliable source. There is no proof that any important unit of the French fleet has been handed over to the Axis, but the Nazis are obviously using several smaller French craft such as minesweepers', patrol vessels, and possibly also submarines which they captured in the French Atlantic ports. French naval units, however, arc frequentl yused to protect the traffic of French merchant vessels from the French colonies, and especially from North Africa to France and vice versa. Not only has the greater part of the merchandise they carried to France been confiscated by Axis commissions but the cargoes to North Africa have frequently been charged with supplies and foodstuffs for Field Marshal Rommel's Libyan army. In supplying the Libyan front, the French fleet has done important service to the Axis cause.

There are strong indications but no fully-conclusive proof that Axis submraines and raiders are using Vichy bases for refuelling and foodsupplying. The British have officially announced that their second attack on the island of Madagascar was mainly caused by the fact that Japanese submarines had been refuelling in Madagascar ports. Identical reports have come in from French West Africa, from Morocco, and from Martinique, and it has been especially alleged that the. German raiders operated from Dakar and Casablanca. Dakar is the main centre of the African palm-oil industry and ' observers in French West Africa have testified that unusually large quantities of palm oil, which may feed the diesel motors of submarines, had been stocked in recent months. The British complain that French reconnaissance planes have been constantly disclosing the location of Allied convoys in sending uncoded radio messages to Dakar, which are easily intercepted and read by the Nazis. In Casablanca and in Martinique the situation is somewhat different because at both places American naval observers and consular authorities are on the spot. The distribution of fuel, which is shipped from the United States to both French colonies, is closely controlled by American officials. Incoming and outgoing ships are checked by United States observers. In spite of this fact, numerous and reliable reports from French Morocco emphasise the presence of. German raiders in Moroccan waters.