CHIAPPE’S DEATH

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 May 1941, Page 6

CHIAPPE’S DEATH

VICHY OFFICIAL KILLED BY ITALIANS. A COMMUNIQUE SUPPRESSED. The aeroplane carrying M. Jean Chiappe, the famous police prefect, to Syria on November 27 last, was shot . clown by an Italian aeroplane. This categoric statement was made by “France,’’ the Free French newspaper published in London. It gives documentary evidence claimed to completely refute the Axis allegation that the plane was shot down by the British. ’ The evidence was collected by the Lisbon correspondent of “France..” The main proof is an Italian air ministry communique issued in the usual manner on November 28. but subsequently suppressed by the Rome censor. The correspondent writes: "This naval battle of Cape Teulada during which the Italians lost several I warships, took place on the morning and afternoon of November 27. It was the subject of a Fascist High Command communique on the evening of November 27. The communique admitted that the Italian fighter had shot down a big aircraft of a type not identified." Meanwhile, all copies of the communique were supressed by the censors in Rome and all morning papers appeared with the Air Ministry communique, less the story of the shot down plane. The correspondent gives the Vichy version of the story gathered from officials, politicians and journalists ■ from Vichy and Paris who have visited Lisbon since the end of November. He says: "The only information reaching Vichy was an SOS from Chiappe's plane and the discovery by the French destroyer Bison of an ‘Air France’ lifeboat floating in midsen. “Competent authorities in Vichy drafted a communique merely stating that an Air France plane had been shot down in the Mediterranean ■during an Anglo-Italian air fight,' but this did not satisfy M. Laval, who was then Vice-Premier and Foreign Minister. Ho gave orders that the words ’by British lighter’ were to be added to the Vichy communique. Next day all the organs of totalitarian propaganda everywhere launched a fierce attack on Britain."