 To aid the French, on 6 June 1940 the Franklin D. Roosevelt Administration ordered the U.S. Navy to fly 50 SBC-4s of the Naval Reserve, currently in use by the Navy, to the Curtiss-Wright factory in Buffalo, New York where the 50 planes would be refurbished to French standards.This included removing all U.S. markings on instruments and equipment, replacing the American machine guns with French 7.7-millimeter (0.303-caliber) Darne machine guns and repainting the aircraft in French camouflage colors.Once converted, the aircraft were to be delivered to RCAF Station Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada where they would be loaded onto the French aircraft carrier "Béarn".