852.00/3121: Telegram
The Consul at Seville (Bay) to the Secretary of State
[Received 10:20 p.m.]
I communicated to General Queipo de Llano this morning the contents of the Department’s September 9, 5 p.m.26 He stated he would gladly request General Franco to continue investigations as desired.
At the same time the General handed me a communication in which he quotes a letter of September 10 from the President of the provisional government in Burgos, the principal part of which translated reads as follows:
“This Council of National Defense is certain that no airplane belonging to its service could have so repeatedly bombed the mentioned destroyer and indeed aviators have been given positive orders to respect all foreign flags—more especially that of a nation which it may be justly stated has observed absolute neutrality since the beginning of the movement. Moreover, from the time and location of the attack, it has been confirmed that none of our planes were in flight in the described zone.”
In the course of our conversation the General stated that while certain of his seaplanes were flying over Cadiz the day the Kane was attacked in order to protect the entry there of German merchant seamen his planes were not at any time in the region where the Kane was attacked. He did not agree with the statement of the Madrid Government that it had no plane of the type described by the Commander of the Kane and declared that the Madrid Government requisitioned two German airplanes of the described type on the outbreak of hostilities. The aviation liaison officer also showed the Vice Consul an intelligence report concerning the forced landing of one of their tri-motor planes about August 15 and its capture by Red forces who took it to Madrid for active service. Planes belonging to the Madrid forces were described by the General as bearing a red band around the fuselage while planes of the National forces seen from the ground have, he said, a black stripe across the wing and a black circle near the tip. The rudder bears a black letter X on a white background. These markings are given so that they may be checked with observations made by the destroyer.
With regard to the neutrality of the American Government referred to in the letter quoted above the General remarked that the United States is the only country whose munitions have not been found in Spain.