SEPARATE PEACE?

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 223, 19 September 1940, Page 5

SEPARATE PEACE?

ITALIAN SITUATION.

WAR WAS IUfIT WANTED. (Air Mail.) LOS ANGELES, Sept. 1 A rumour that Italy may 'make i separate peace which hae been flutterin; about Europe found some; striking sig nificance by a letter received by Lei Shippey, the Los Angeles novelist, wh; declared he had received it from a write friend then in Italy. He says it is thi most interesting sidelight on the e eitua tion in Italy that- has yet been receive< n the United States. Mr. Shippey published the letter in tin 'Loe Angeles Times," of which he ie j iolumnist. The letter reads: " Thing; ire so dull here that we would weleonx i bombing. When we heard that an ►ther town had been bombed, a frient emarked: 'Some people get all th< >reaks.' But at noon the other daj ,he guns began to boom. I ran to m> vindow facing the port and saw a largi plane flying very low, not over 100( ieet, and very elowly. It was comin} 'rom the enemy direction straight at thi leart of the city. Every aircraft gui iround the city and all those on th< warships blazed away at it. Witl shells bursting all around it, the 'plain iwept calmly on ite way. How i escaped all tijfct barrage is a mystery SVhen it got over an airport and we ex jected it to loose its bombs, it bankei md landed. Rumours flew'that "it wa: i British 'plane forced down, but eooi t became known that it was an Italiai plane which was flyjng low in order t< Jβ recognised. The gunners were eo jit iery and their trigger fingers were «t lervous that after the first shot hac ieen fired everybody else fired without ooking closely enough to recognise the plane. It was what the Italians call i 'bruta figura, , or lose of face.

, "Our first two alarms came at 2 a.m. Shells bursting at night look like heat lightning, and the. tracer shells from machine gnne or rapid-fire guns looked like spray from a Roman candle. I was lin Trieste when war was declared. De-

spite the propaganda campaign, no one in Italy expe-cted or wished war. There was no such atmosphere of preparation and expectancy as there was laet September. I doubt that the Duce would have declared war had the French held. He wanted to be sure and pick the winner. The jackal always waits until the lion has had his fill.

"We listened to his speech by radio, then went to watch the crowd returning from the Piazza. . . . The bands were playing but the black shirts were marching silently. The civilians looked stunned and dejected. I never saw a lees enthusiastic crowd. . . . Tin , .

'popolo' did not want war. The spuri-l ousness of the Duce's excuses for war were obvious to everyone. The finer Italians, of whom there are many, have, always felt apologetic about Italy's role in the previous war. They have been tryfng to live down the stigma of having waited in order t'o join the winner. Now

that stigma ie doubled. They know that most of the world holds a low opinion of them. ...

"The masses know-nothing of this, but they know war is bad for them. They must do most of the suffering and dying. They respect Britain's traditional strength, and they do not like to be killed for an uncertain future- . . . That is why Italy has attempted no serioua operations in the war. And the thinking Italiane are uneasy. They cannot j deny that a victorious Germany its a threat to Italv.

"To sum up, Italy ie ashamed of itself while it is trying its best to l>r. proud. It is worried about the future when it ie trying its best to be confident. It knows that it could have trusted England and France, but it can-i not trust Hitler. It prefers to do as little ae it can in this war and risk as little as it can, waiting until it ie more positive as to which side will win. . . .