Spotlight on Africa

The U.S. was moving swiftly last week to set up an air screen in a neglected sector: North Africa (see map). By agreement with France, the U.S. would put an estimated $30 million and some 20,000 men into French Morocco. Six enlarged and reconstructed bases, plus one new field, to handle all types of U.S. fighting aircraft, would be ready by midsummer.

Another agreement with Britain, almost completed, provided for improvement and U.S. use of R.A.F. bases protecting Africa: Bengasi and Castel Benito in Libya; Habbaniya and Shaibah in Iraq; airfields around the Suez Canal; Amman in Jordan; Cyprus and Malta in the Mediterranean. With the new bases, a U.S. plane taking off from Cyprus, for example, would have to fly only 1,500 miles to Moscow, 1,000 miles to Baku. The U.S. already held giant Wheelus Field near Tripoli (also being enlarged), and an airbase at Dhahran in Saudi Arabia.

The French agreement had been signed in December, kept secret by U.S. officials, but leaked to the press from a Paris official last week. No time was being lost. Bulldozers had already been unloaded in French Morocco, the first group of engineers was on the ground, ships laden with airfield equipment were en route. The seven Moroccan fields were at Port Lyautey, Marrakech, Casablanca, Meknes, Rabat, Kourigha, Nouasseur. The incoming Americans would find the flat, sparsely wooded terrain ideal for military aircraft bases, but would run into difficulties with the heat (120DEG in the summer shade) and the housing (very tight).

Moroccan shopkeepers began hoarding luxury goods and hiding their perfumes in happy anticipation of free-spending G.I.s. But there was a more realistic brand of rejoicing. Said a French official on the spot: "This proves that Morocco is considered a bastion of Europe."

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