MOROCCAN SEA FRONTIER FORCES
   
  JSP:mjw  
  Serial 00708                                                                                 Casablanca, F.M.  
                                                                                                       August 22, 1943  
  SECRET  
     
  my dear Commander,  
     
          We are sending all the material on 664.  As in the case of 527, this is being routed from Commander Moroccan Sea Frontier Forces to you via DNI.  
     
          Handling of this group has been without incident but, as you will see from the voluminous amount of material enclosed, elaborate interrogations were undertaken on the carrier before she put in.  The Chief of Staff was distressed at the amount of interrogation conducted aboard BOGUE and CARD on the 527 and 664 people and, therefore, sent a dispatch several days ago requesting clarification of the directives involved.  I hope that this will begin to straighten out the problems arising from CINCLANT's request of July 24 that survivors be interrogated at once for certain information.  
     
          There will be a delay in getting these people back to you as there is little transport available in this part of the world at this time.  We will not be able to wait around to put these people aboard as we did with the 527 group, but I am asking JICA here to handle that end of the thing and I believe it will go satisfactorily.  Nine men are still hospitalized, and four or five are so badly wounded that they will not emerge for several months.  
     
          On August 9 we left Casablanca, having finished up the 527 job.  (Incidentally, having "sweated out" the number of Uhlig's boat from his boys - sans documents - we were amused on getting back to Algiers to find that the latest P/W Weekly had arrived during our absence and beaten us to the gun).  After only three days in Algiers we were ordered to fly back here to await the arrival of this gang, so we have not had a break in the continuity since July 12 - which sounds more like 1402 than AFHQ.  
     
          We were greatly distressed to learn upon our Algiers that the handling of the 409 people had misfired again.  The British had promised to assemble the whole crowd in one holding camp for transfer to our PMG, who would then hold them aboard ship for U.S.  The British failed to do so and the PMG collected only one group, leaving the other group at a second holding camp.  We were fed up because we had made the requisite arrangements personally, furnished the necessary transfer papers, etc.  To complete the picture, the PMG phoned JICA and gave them vital statistics on the group left behind rather than on those sent - which accounted for the discrepancies in the dispatches.  
     
          Hardenburg and I were very glad to receive in Algiers your kind and  
 
 
 
SECRET
  
     

 

     
     
  JSP:mjw
  Serial 00708                                                    - 2 -
     
  SECRET                                                                                                            August 22, 1943  
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  reassuring letter of August 7, we had plagued you with so many accounts of our "difficulties" that we felt you might have interpreted them as personal complaints.  In this connection, I can only say that whatever trouble we have experienced had been in relation to the single problem of doing the job over here "according to the book".  Naturally, the toughest part of all has been our opposition to the constant infractions of the standards of handling which we learned in Z.  
     
          On our return to Algiers we drafted a letter to you explaining what had happened to the 409 crowd, but Lieut. Comdr. Horan, acting CIC, JICA, then informed us that any communication with Op.16.Z., henceforth would have to go through official channels and that we would no longer be permitted to write you directly.  He simply stated that such correspondence was in violation of Naval regulations and that official matters could not be transmitted on an unofficial basis.  
     
          Captain Major's arrival is being awaited with interest by all JICA personnel.  There is a strong feeling that JICA will be dissolved as such and that the majority of JICA's officers have been transferred already, and we feel that we may be swept up in the general movement, with the possibility of being diverted to other duties.  As you may readily imagine, we would hardly welcome such a change.  
     
          With warm personal regards and best wishes to all the gang,  
     
                                                                     Respectfully yours,  
                                                                 
                                                                     J.  S.  PLAUT  
                                                                     Lieut., USNR  
     
     
  Commander John L. Riheldaffer, USN (Ret.)  
  Op.16.Z., Room 3544,  
  Navy Department,  
  Washington, D. C.  
     
 
 
 
SECRET