DARLAN IN AFRICA

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 22, 21 October 1942, Page 5

DARLAN IN AFRICA

Connexion With Liberia? ' LONDON, October 19. Admiral Darlan, Chief of the French Armed Forces, lias gone to Algiers. Announcing, this, Berlin radio said that. Darlan was making the visit because hie son, who is a naval officer there, is ill, but Vichy political circles admit the visit may also serve for discussions with the Vichy North African High Command. Theee conferences, it is said, would “occur at a time when the landing of the United 'States troops in Liberia has (made French military defence measures necessary• “There has been no official explanation of the landing of American. troops in Liberiaobserves the New \ork 1 line., “though it coincides with reports that German submarines are operating against Allied convoy routes from Gape 1 almae, hist across the border of eastern Liberia. Chy will not fail to note that Monrovia (capital of Liberia) is only <oo miles by air from Dakar. “Berlin says Liberia will soon join the United Nations. In that event I'reneli West Africa will be entirely blocked oil in the south-east by territory fiostile to Germany. It is not surprising that the German propaganda department is nervous about Dakar and the hinterland, lor Hitler has been exerting the utmost pressure to obtain military control of the al “Liberia is the closest we have come to Dakar, though the British at Fretown, are even closer but the landing apparently was only the latest of a series ot bridgeheads we have flung ‘round the Gult ot Guinea. The Axis has reported that American troops were in the Gold Coast territory, Nigeria, Brazzaville (French Equatorial Africa), and Leopoldville (Belgian Congo). The military resources of this vast section are now veryconsiderable, even without the influx id Americans. , , , “The map reveals how completely the Axis flank and rear in North Africa and Vichy’s stronghold at Dakar lie open to advance from the south.”