The Americans in West Africa

Southland Times, Issue 24878, 19 October 1942, Page 4

The Americans in West Africa

THE announcement that American troops have landed in Liberia, on the West African coast, will strengthen the belief that important events are impending at Dakar. For several weeks messages have been received, usually from neutral and doubtful sources, pointing towards Allied preparations for action in French West Africa. On Thursday, for instance, it was reported from a German-controlled agency that British and American troops were concentrated at Gambia, on the Senegal frontier, and that a large Allied convoy had been seen off Dakar. (This convoy was probably moving towards Liberia.) Earlier reports spoke of British warships and transports at Gibraltar, and it is known that French women and children have been evacuated from Dakar. The conclusion to be drawn from these news items is that the Germans are expecting trouble at the western tip of Africa. They have good reasons for knowing that it would be the logical outcome of their own activities. The U-boat menace remains one of the most serious problems of the war, and in recent months the rate of sinkings is believed to have been rising in the central Atlantic. It is through this area that the great British and American convoys are passing to the Cape of Good Hope and the Middle East. For some time there has been a suspicion that the French colonial authorities were permitting the Germans to use Dakar as a submarine base. Only on this supposition was it possible to explain the successful operations of U-boats in the Carribean. It is believed, moreover, that German reconnaissance planes are operating from aerodromes in French West Africa. If this is true it points, not only to the systematic raiding of the sea lanes with French connivance, but also to the growing danger of interference with the air transport route across Central Africa —an important link in the supply chain which now stretches from the United States to the Middle East. The landing of American forces in Liberia (which is about 700 miles south of Dakar) seems to mean that steps are being taken to neutralize the base from its southern flank. Whether or not this can be done without an attack on Dakar itself is a question that must be answered by events. But it seems probable that there will be fighting in West Africa. And events in that area may add the final strain to relations between Vichy and the Allies. 4