BOMBARDMENT OF PANTELLERIA

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23966, 5 June 1943, Page 5

BOMBARDMENT OF PANTELLERIA

Allied Nayal And Air Attacks NAPLES BOMBED AGAIN (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) CRec. 11 p.m.) LONDON, June 4. The Italian island of Pantelleria has been bombarded twice more by British naval forces. The first of these attacks was on Wednesday night, and the second at dawn yesterday. Shells fell on harbour installations and battery areas. There was slight retaliation, but the naval forces suffered neither damage nor casualties. Wellington bombers again attacked Naples on Tuesday night. Bombs fell on port buildings and industrial plants. All the aircraft returned. The Mediterranean air forces pounded Pantelleria and Warhawks gave Sardinia another hammering. An island off the south-east coast of Sardinia was attacked. In the Aegean Sea, aircraft sank two ships and damaged a third. Flying almost at water level, Warhawks attacked the seaplane base on Stagnone Island, off Sicily, on Tuesday. They strafed a line of seaplanes moored in the harbour and destroyed a considerable number and damaged others. The only serious fighter opposition was at Terranova, a port and rail terminus in north-east Sardinia, where Allied aeroplanes set fire to two ships. “Complete Supremacy" “The Allies in the last 24 hours have demonstrated complete supremacy in the central Mediterranean by air and sea,” says the British United Press correspondent in Algiers. “We have smashed an Axis convoy south of the toe of Italy, and sent its ships off hopelessly routed. We have bombed and strafed Pantelleria at will, and also attacked it from ground level. We have attacked objectives throughout Sardinia. “The engagement against the convoy and the almost unchallenged double bombardment of Pantelleria a day earlier, demonstrate the complete mastery we now hold in the Sicilian Straits and elsewhere in the central Mediterranean. The convoy was engaged off Cape Spartivento, and was relentlessly battered until it steamed off for cover. The merchantman which blew up is believed to have been laden with explosives. “Our medium bombers and fighterbombers yesterday roamed southern Sardinia. The objectives included Axis soldiers in camp areas, wireless stations, telephone installations, and military buildings, "Pantelleria got its daily dose of trouble from Marauders, Lightnings, and Warhawks, which ceaselessly raided the island, attacking military targets and also dock works in the tiny harbour. We have managed to do there what the Axis failed to do on Malta—knock out the air opposition. The result was that we attacked at will and did not lose a single aeroplane.” “Whether the Navy has given Italy’s strategically valuable and much-bombed island of Pantelleria the final knock-out is not known for certain, but no enemy ships are reported to have put in there in the last few days. As recently as the final days of the Tunisian campaign our light craft patrolling the Sicilian Channel to prevent any evacuation moves met a fair amount of shellfire from the island’s batteries when they approached the coast. The fact that enemy shelling was negligible during the latest naval bombardments shows that the recent air attacks have taken toll of the island’s defences.”

PRECAUTIONS IN ITALY

REPORTED ORDER TO GARRISONS CRec. 10 p.m.) LONDON, June 3. Mussolini has called up even his civilian Home Guards and guerrilla units as a precaution against Allied invasion. Italy’s fears of invasion are reflected in newspaper demands for a more savage fighting spirit in the Italian forces. The Rome newspaper, “II Tevere." urges Italian soldiers to adopt a policy of utter cruelty. It advocates the machine-gunning of enemy pilots who bail out and the concentrating of Allied war prisoners in target areas. The newspaper says: "If this war is to be total, then let it be total. We must win at all costs. We must win in cruelty. The enemy has asked for it and he will get it.’’ According to reports from the French frontier, the Italian garrisons in Pantelleria, Sardinia, and Sicily have been ordered to stand to, because an Allied invasion is feared to be imminent, says the Madrid correspondent of the British United Press. These reports add that the Italian fleet is ready to sail at one hour's notice. SEAMEN RELEASED FROM ITALY (Special Australian Corresp., N.Z.P.A.) (Rec, 10 p.m.) SYDNEY. June 4. Two Australian sailors released from an Italian prisoner-of-war camp have reached Sydney. They are Ordinary Seamen Charles Harris and Neil Quincey, both of Sydney, who were captured when the British destroyer Hereward, on which they were serving, was sunk by Stuka dive-bombers on May 28, 1941, during the Crete evacuation. They are the only Australians among the 800 British servicemen so far released from Italy under the prisoner-of-war exchange agreement. The Italian authorities would not let the men bring out written messages from any other Australians or New Zealanders. Harris and Quincey spent the last 12 months at a prison camp 40 miles from Genoa. They saw bomb flashes during the Royal Air Force raids on Genoa, and they heard explosions from the raids on Milan and Turin, 90 miles away. They said the Italian guards became "noticeably distressed” during these distant attacks. The men said they were well treated but often hungry. No one could possibly realise what Red Cross parcels meant to prisoners. LORD GOWRIE IN NEW GUINEA (Rec. 8 p.m.) SYDNEY. June 4. ' The Governor-General of Australia (Lord Cowrie) has just completed a tour of operations and service training centres in New Guinea. He inspected forward areas as well as bases. In an address to a company from a Papuan infantry unit, he said he would tell the King of the natives’ bravery in action against the Japanese. Lord Gowrie decorated three Papuans with the Loyal Service Medal for their work in the Buna beach compaign. AMERICAN INTERESTS ABROAD (Rec. 11 p.m.) WASHINGTON, June 4. The United States Treasury has ordered Americans to report on their assets and properties in foreign countries to enable the Government to protect American interests abroad and combat Axis economic strategy. Americans abroad must report to their consuls by September 30. Members of the armed forces serving in foreign countries are exempted.