National Geographic : 1941 Jan
Martinique, Caribbean Question Mark BY EDWARD T. FOLLIARD FROM the porthole of the high-flying baby Clipper, Martinique looked very much like the other islands that fence in
National Geographic : 1941 Jan
Martinique, Caribbean Question Mark BY EDWARD T. FOLLIARD FROM the porthole of the high-flying baby Clipper, Martinique looked very much like the other islands that fence in the Caribbean-like Trinidad, which I had left at 10 o'clock that October morning, and like St. Lucia, past which I had flown a half hour or so before. First there was the glimpse of mountains, moss-colored peaks rising from a blue-green sea; and then, as the plane drew nearer, the view of narrow valleys and fields of sugar cane, fringed here and there with clusters of coco nut palms. That much was familiar in the West Indies. But a few minutes later, the Clipper nosed down over the harbor of Fort-de-France and I was reminded of the changed and melancholy status of Martinique as a New World colony of vanquished and blockaded France. Below us, anchored fairly close together, were two gray warships, a tricolor drooping from their jack staffs. One was a fat and ungainly vessel, which, I knew, would be the much-talked-about air craft carrier Bearn. The other was a true man o'-war, the sleek cruiser Emile Bertin, one of the fastest warships afloat. A few sailors, their white caps surmounted by pompons, moved about the decks, but on the whole there was remarkably little activity on the two ships. I got the impression that their anchors had taken a firm hold, that their masters didn't expect to go anywhere for a long time; and this impression was strength ened when I took up my sojourn on the island. Planes Without a Country I heard the story of how the Bearn happened to be at Fort-de-France. She was in mid ocean, traveling from Halifax to a French port with 100 American-made warplanes, when France capitulated. Suddenly she got orders to put about and head for the West Indian colony, thus keeping the planes out of the hands of France's conqueror. Admiral Georges Robert, bearded French High Commissioner of all France's possessions in the Caribbean-Guadeloupe, French Guiana, and Martinique-received me at his headquar ters in an old villa overlooking the harbor. The Biarn and Emile Bertin were at Mar tinique to protect the colony, nothing more, he said. The American-made planes,