CRISIS INITALY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 August 1943, Page 4

CRISIS INITALY

, EARLY ANNOUNCEMENT OF CAPITULATION EXPECTED Opinion in London Circles MUCH DIPLOMATIC ACTIVITY REPORTED IN ROME BROADCAST BY VATICAN RADIO (By Telegraph—Press Association.—Copyright.) (Received This Day, 11.20 a.m.) LONDON, August 19. Following reports from Swedish correspondents in Rome that a major development occurred in Italy yesterday, observers in London expect an early announcement of Italy s capitulation. The Italian Government is belie.ved now to have realised that it is impossible to defend the country against an air offensive and to repulse an invasion of the Italian mainland. The Vatican radio today stated: “Newspaper correspondents in Rome have noted frequent visits of ambassadors, ministers and the Apostolic Nuncia to the Royal Palace. The Vatican is fully aware of its pacifying and selfless task. In the present decisive hour, the Vatican does not cease to exercise its vigilant sense of responsibility and its active and impartial co-operation in all efforts calculated to grant peace again to the world.” Reuter’s Algiers correspondent says the Italians in Sicily lest another complete army, the fifth lost in the war. The Italian Sixth Army has ceased to exist, although probably the headquarters escaped to the mainland. The Sixth Army was composed of two corps, comprising nine divisions. The five armies lost by the Italians were the First, Fifth and Tenth, destroyed in African fighting; the Eighth disintegrated in Russia and the Sixth lost in Sicily. ENEMY EVACUATE COASTAL STRIP Where Positions Now Untenable EFFECTIVENESS OF ALLIED BOMBARDMENTS (Received This Day, 12.5 p.m.) LONDON, August 19. According to the Algiers radio the Axis forces have evacuated the coastal strip in the extreme south of Italy where their positions have become untenable owing to the Allied bomoaraments. They have left the ferry town of Reggio and the area as far as Palmi, 35 miles northward.