SECRET.
8164
COPY.
MESSAGE
To: Commodore, Malaya
0. in C. China 856
232.
C. in C. Mediterranean 322 C. in C. East Indies 608 C. in C. Home Fleet 332.
OUT.
Date: 19. 10. 37.
Addressed: Commodore kalaya, repeated C. in C. China,
C. in C. Mediterranean, C. in C. East Indies, and
C. in C. Home Fleet, from A¿miralty.
Your 1629/5. Requests have been made both by
Japanese and Chinese Governments as well as by Spanish
insurgents for British merchant ships to be plainly marked
so that they may easily be identified from the air. These
requests have been refused on ground that onus of
identification rests with aircraft and that H.M.Government
possess no powers to instruct shipowners to mark their ships
and thus ensure that practice is followed by all British
ships affected.
If practice became common aircraft would
tend to rely on markings and unmarked ships might be singled
out for undesirable attention. These considerations are of
more importance in connection with attempts at interference
with shipping by the contending Spanish parties and a
precedent established in the Far East might have awkward
repercussions in the Mediterranean.
Whilst there is no objection to action you have
already taken you should bear these facts in mind in dealing
with future requests of the same character.
1625/19.
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