Northern Italy Paralysed by Strike

Manawatu Times, Volume 69, Issue 53, 6 March 1944, Page 5

Northern Italy Paralysed by Strike

Received Sunday 8.50 p.m. LONDON, March 5. War industries and transport services throughout Northern Italy are tied up by a general strike involving 6,000,000 workers in the German occupied area, says a Zurich message. The strike began at Genoa and spread to the French, German and Swiss frontiers. The Basle National Zeitung reports that a secret committee operating in 43 northern provinces organised the strike. Serious riots are going on in Milan and disorders are also reported from Bologna, Genoa and Turin, The strike flared up on Thursday. Factories were rendered idle and tram services suspended. The original demand was for bigger food rations. Tho strikers are carrying placards demanding that conscription for labour and service in Germany be countermanded, also that they be given better economic conditions. An unidentified plane is reported to have flown over Milan dropping leaflets calling on the railwaymen to strike. No trains have arrived at the Swiss borders from Milan since Thursday. Reuter’s Zurich correspondent, quoting the Swiss Telegraph Agency’s Chiasso correspondent says the strike in Northern Italy continues. Another Swiss report states that tension is growing in Northern Italy. Partisans benefiting from the situation have gainea control of whole districts, especially Piedmonte. The Berlin radio says the strike was engineered by Communists and directed from abroad. Despite the strike all the Milan transport has resumed operations. ping, chiefly around the Yugoslavia coast, were destroyed by our Desert Air Force in February, writes a correspondent at Allied Headquarters in North Africa. This conservative figure includes only ships known to have been sunk or destroyed. Our aircraft ac- < counted for 220 enemy motor vehicles on roads in Yugoslavia. Nineteen enemy aircraft were destroyed on the ground, and five were damaged hy the Bouth African Spitfire wing on one airfield in Yugoslavia.