PEAK REACHED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21113, 5 June 1943, Page 3

PEAK REACHED

ITALIANJTENSION CONFIDENCE WANING BALKANS DEFENCE PLANS (By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (10 a.m.) LONDON, June 4. Tension in Italy has reached the highest point, says the Algiers radio. Public opinion is most anxious ' and every day less confident of Italy’s anti-invasion defences. Following a mass exodus of Italian workers from factories to escape the Allied raids, the Government has issued a decree that workers who leave will be courtmartialled as deserters. The desertions are reported to have had a devastating effect on Italian industrial production, especially Turin's aircraft factories and chemical works. Bulgarian troops in Greece arc nowdefending themselves on a regular front against Greek guerrillas, states the German-controlled Scandinavian News Agency’s Sofia correspondent. The front is near the junction of the Greek-Yugoslav-Albanian frontiers. The Bulgarians have been forced from several villages.

The German commandant of strategically vital defence areas throughout the Balkans is hastening the formation, training and provisioning of special units of shock troops designed to fight independently and form a central command when cut off from supplies and communications during the expected Allied invasion. Reporting this, the New York Times Istanbul correspondent says that the units range in size _ from a regulai company up to a brigade. They are officered by Germans who distinguished themselves in the fighting against Russian and Yugoslav guerrillas. The units include Germans, Bulgars, Croats and a sprinkling oi Hungarians. They receive higher pay. increased rations, and promises oi prompt promotion. ' The Moscow radio reports that Field Marshal Sigmund List, HenHitler’s blitzkrieg expert, has arrived in Bucharest on a special mission.