53846/40 34
29
BURMA OFFICE,
WHITEHALL
LONDON, S.W.1.
RECEIVED
1.2405/40
Secret.
2 8 MAY 1940
Y
27th May, 1940.
24
And (32)
Dear Sant
Your letter of 22nd May No. 53846/40 about the four commercial transport planes for the assembly of which at Hong Kong the Inter-Continent Corporation asked permission to use the Government aerodrome. As assembly in Hong Kong for export to China is not permissible, the alternative of sending the four machines in an unassembled state through Burma to the Corporation's factory at Loiwing seems clearly worth considering: there can, so far as we can see, be no possible political objection to this course: it should be perfectly feasible unless any of the packages comprising parts of the unassembled machines are so long as to create difficulties on some of the sharp re-entrants on the Bhamo-Loiwing mountain road. But this is a trans- port problem of which the people in charge at Loiwing have ample experience.
If this plan is adopted it would be well that the Government of Hong Kong should inform the Government of Burma, Defence Department, of the relevant facts when the machines are shipped from Hong Kong to Rangoon.
A copy of this letter is being sent to Ashley Clarke at the Foreign Office and L. G. S. Reynolds at the Air Ministry.
Yours sincerely
Q.J. Curly
G.E.J.Gent, Esq.
D.S.O., O.B.E.,M.C.,
Colonial Office.