893.24/1034
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Chief of the Division of Controls (Green)
Colonel MacMorland of the Army and Navy Munitions Board called me by telephone this morning. He said that the Chinese Military Attaché had called at the War Department and had requested that the Chinese Government be permitted to purchase from this Government one hundred twenty 75-mm. guns with ammunition therefor. [Page 715] The Colonel said that the War Department had no surplus 75-mm. guns; that he did not believe that, in the ordinary course of events, any of these guns would be declared surplus within the next year or so; but that the matter was being referred to the Secretary of War and that there was, of course, a possibility that some of these guns might be declared surplus if the policy of this Government made it advisable that the Chinese Government be permitted to acquire them. He added that, if the Chinese were to endeavor to purchase these guns from private manufacturers, they could not possibly be delivered until the spring of 1942.