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Yes, the Vichy regime wanted to transport them to Indochina. But that's only the tip of the iceberg.

On August 24, 1940, the British Purchasing Commission sent a letter to Monsieur George Theunis (former Beligian P.M. and at the time "Ambassadeur Extraordinaire") signed by A. H. Self, asking to purchase the six Brewsters, twelve Colt machine guns and "other material" and to "remove this material from Martinique by a steamer supplied by your government to a destination to be named by mine". However, a letter from Theunis and Commander E. DeWeer, Chief of the Belgian Air Mission, transferred the six Brewsters back to the Brewster Aeronautical Corp. (the August 26 letter is one of the few which actually identifies Buffalo c/n's - we know the six on Martiniques were No. 65, 66, 67, 68, 71 and 72). Subsequently Brewster sent a September 11, 1940, letter to Cordell Hull describing the resale back to Brewster, and then plaintively asking "Brewster Aeronautical Corp. ...has no agent in La Martinique and does not know how to proceed in order to contact directly the proper authoritiesd in that French island. Brewster Aeronautical Corp. therefore requests the State Department to kindly instruct the American Counsel in La Martinique to approach officially the responsible authorities..." The object was to send tchnicians to inspect, repair if necessary, and crate and ship and/or fly the planes to the Unitied States. Obviously nobody knew there was no airfield on Martinique.

The French (Jacques Dumaine, First Secretary of the Embassy in Washington) raised the idea of shipping them to Indochina in a conversation with the State Department (Ray Atherton, Chief of the Division of European Affairs) after indicating that the conditions of the armistice with Germany would make returning them to the U.S. impossible [Foreign Relations of the United States, Diplomatic Papers 1940 Volume II, pages 520-1]. A subsequent conversation on September 20 between the French Ambassador and Undersecretary Gideon Welles confirmed that either returning the planes [all, not just the Brewsters] to the U.S. or transfer to Indochina would require German approval. Welles stated that "I took occasion to say that it seemed to me in the highest degree ludicrous that the French Mission from Indo-China should now be imploring the Government of the United States, with the support of the French Embassy, to furnish munitions, and particularly airplanes, to French Indo-China, when at this very moment 90 new planes [!, and again !] manufactured in the United States and the property of the French Government, were rotting on the hill sides of Martinique. The Ambassador said he quite agreed".

Subsequent notes in Foreign Relations refer to a discussion between the Counselor of the French Embassy, Truelle, and Adolf Berle of the State Department, around the idea of the U.S. simply taking the planes. Berle wrote on September 30 "I said that we did not want another Dakar incident, but that if it wold be any help[ for us to 'take' the planes, maybe that could be worked out. Truelle said he could not comment. I said that what we really wanted, of course, was the return of the planes; we might send them to Indo-China, were they useful there; otherwise we would keep them for our own national defense."

This obviously went nowhere. The U.S. was concerned with making it clear to the French that their warships and aircraft not become a threat in the Caribbean, and Roosevelt himself was close by the island in early December aboard the cruiser Tuscaloosa, part of a standing Navy overwatch. Roosevelt asked the U.S. Vice Counsel to ask French Admiral Roberts about the possible sale of the aircraft to "some South American country" December 1940 State Department discussions touched again on the French inconsistency in asking for U.S. planes (the French ambassador asked that the ten aircraft intended for Thailand - P-64's? - but held up in the Phillipines be released to French Indochina). The French used the impasse to imply this might cause them to accept Japanese demands. Oh, that's what made them give in!

Against this backdrop, there's the additional nugget of the USAAC 25th Bomb Group, flying Douglas B-18's. Shortly after the arrival of the Bearn at Martinique, six B-18's were dispatched to Antigua, 180 miles away, to conduct surveillance over Fort de France, and bomb the Bearn if it attempted to leave (Aerospace Historian Vol. 29, No. 2, June 1982, page 92). The U.S. was worried about this Vichy threat to the Panama Canal. Visions of French SBC's escorted by (non-carrier-equipped) Brewsters were evidently more ominous then than can be conceived in hindsight.