ROUTE OF PLANES

New Zealand Herald, Volume 79, Issue 24281, 23 May 1942, Page 7

ROUTE OF PLANES

SUPPLIES FOR RUSSIANS ALASKA-SI BERIA SUGGESTED (Reed. 5.35 p.m.) NEW YORK, May 21 Russia will not permit the delivery of aeroplanes from the United States to Siberia via Alaska, says the Washington correspondent of the Daily News. Alaskan bases are prepared and the Army and Air Force ferrying commands are ready to use this route, but Soviet reaction is not quite sympathetic.

President Roosevelt and Mr. Cordell Hull, Secretary of State, are anxious to avoid the longer and more dangerous Murmansk route for aeroplanes being sent to Russia, but they understand that the Soviet cannot afford to fight on two fronts, so the route across the Bering Sea must not be used until the Japanese attack Russia, or both Murmansk and the Persian Gulf routes are severed. FRESH ATTACK LIKELY BRITISH AT DIEGO SUAREZ LIGHT ON VICHY POLICY (Reed. 9.30 p.m.) LONDON, May 21 The Paris radio reports that further strong British contingents have landed nt Diego Suarez, including important Hoyal Air Force units. It is believed that the British intend to attack the French air base further to the south. The Free French authorities have published extracts from a report by a senior French officer who escaped from Madagascar, says the British official wireless. Vichy, he said, pursued a policy of repression and violent antiBritish propaganda, which, however, failed to stifle the French sympathies of the majority of French colonists. Most of the French military personnel on the island supported General de Gaulle and the Allies. High administrative officials guilty of revealing their pro-Allied feelings had been imprisoned and a large number of natives had been imprisoned for the same reason to stamp out resistance.

A Vichy policy was to send back to France the more important civil servants and army officers. General Abadie, Commander-in-Chief until the middle of last year, who defended his officers accused of de Gaullist sentiments. was thus recalled to Vichy. Immediately after the armistice the whole island was determined to continue to fight. However, the indecision of the Governors of other French colonies, coupled with the subsequent activities of special Vichy envovs. prevented any effective action. Faith in the Allied cause was kept alive by French broadcasts from London and Brazzaville, and attempts to escape to join the Free French forces were frequent, but the penalties for the unlucky ones were severe. MARTINIQUE ISSUE SATISFACTORY TALKS UNITED STATES ATTITUDE NEW YORK, May 21 Mr. Cordell Hull, the Secretary of State, said at a press conference that the conversations concerning the French West Indies island of Martinique had progressed so satisfactorily that those dealing with the military matters would probably be concluded in five or six days. Those dealing wjth economic matters, such as the disposition of merchant ships now in French West Indian harbours, were likely to take longer. Mr. Hull said the State Department had made no appeal to General de Gaulle for help in dealing with New Caledonia conditions, as some quarters reported. He also said that the only aim of the United States in occupying French or Free French territory was to advance the United States cause and win the war. Such occupation was done with a definite and solemn undertaking to return the territory to the appropriate French authorities when the war had ended.