1942, April 6 – 1943, September 9: (Lescot’s War: The Shoreham Suite, Lend-Lease Artillery, the Coast Guard at Bizoton, and Haiti’s First Aviator): Having re…

1942, April 6 – 1943, September 9: (Lescot’s War: The Shoreham Suite, Lend-Lease Artillery, the Coast Guard at Bizoton, and Haiti’s First Aviator): Having rendered himself secure at home, Lescot repaired to Washington. On April 6, 1942, after a week of Washington’s Rock Creek springtime at the windows of his deluxe suite in the Shoreham, Lescot and Welles initialed a memorandum of understanding: the United States would buy Haiti’s entire cotton crop for the duration, the Export-Import Bank would credit Haiti with $2 million to support the gourde, sisal was to be stepped up to meet war needs, and Haiti would receive Lend-Lease artillery, military aircraft, and a U.S. Coast Guard detachment to base at Bizoton. A Coast Guard detachment with five patrol boats for local antisubmarine operations took over Bizoton, modernizing the yard and constructing a marine railway — in 1945, with the Atlantic battle won, the Coast Guard withdrew, leaving a well-trained Garde-Côtes and a trim 83-foot flagship well named Savannah. A U.S. Field Artillery detachment sited cannon for harbor defense of Port-au-Prince, the Môle, and the Cap, finally arming the Garde with artillery. Most important was the arrival during summer 1942 of six Douglas O-38s to base at Bowen Field — these aircraft were unsuitable and all six would be wrecked or unserviceable within a year, but they marked the debut of the Corps d’Aviation, which eventually came into being as a separate unit on September 9, 1943, under command of Captain G. Edouard Roy, who thus became Haiti’s first aviator. Roy perceived the usefulness of air transportation in a country still possessing a built-in network of airfields laid out by the Marines, and regular airmail and transport service was established in June 1943, with what finally became the first national airline, COHATA, operated by the Corps d’Aviation.