VITAL FACTOR

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 September 1943, Page 4

VITAL FACTOR

» ACTION OF THE ITALIANS IN THEIR OWN & OCCUPIED TERRITORY. STRONG GERMAN RESISTANCE ANTICIPATED. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 9.5 a.m.) RUGBY, September 9. Relations henceforward between German and Italian troops have become of vital importance. The progress of the campaign in Italy will depend on assistance to the Allies and the extent of the Italians’ denial of communications to the Germans. German troops in Italy are estimated in London to number about 18 divisions, of which about half are in the industrial north and the rest strung out along Italy. Other German divisions share with Italians the occupation of Greece and Yugoslavia and there are German garrisons in Crete and Sardinia and probably in Rhodes and Corsica. Press messages from Allied Headquarters emphasise that the Italian Government’s military surrender does not mean that the Allied armies have a simple occupation ahead. The Germans are in strength in Italy and will resist the Allied penetration as it approaches their own. They may have expected the Italian capitulation, but they were not foolish enough not to make preparations to meet contingencies. The Germans know well that the occupation of Italy would reduce the entire Mediterranean to an Allied lake and bring tremendous air strength within easy reach of a great part of Germany, Bulgaria, Rumania, Hungary and Austria. In central and southern Italy there are at least 100 good airfields and satellite landing grounds. The Flying Fortress operating arc from Foggia runs through Ploesti, Warsaw and Berlin and to within 80 miles of Paris. German Europe would be between two fires. The Germans know, too, just how well equipped in airfields is the Lombardy Plain and how Flying Fortresses there could bomb as far north as Copenhagen and Brest and would be only 55 minutes’ flight from Berlin. Using landing grounds in Lombardy, Flying Fortresses would have 100 miles less to fly to the German capital than bombers based on England. Summing up, one correspondent says: “The Italians are ours, but Italy is not ours yet. Germany’s military position is slowly and steadily deteriorating. She is reaching the stage of her fiercest and most desperate resistance. It is unreasonable to expect her to relinquish one more outpost without a bitter sacrifice.”

NEWS OF CAPITULATION WELCOMED BY PRISONERS IN BRITAIN. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.35 a.m.) RUGBY, September 9. Some 35,000 Italian prisoners, engaged in helping Britain to gather her harvest went to work as usual this morning. Reports from one of the biggest camps in East Anglia state that when the Italians were, told of the capitulation last night there was general rejoicing. At the same time they were warned that this announcemnet did not mean any relaxation in normal work or routine. Farmers reported this afternoon that the gangs worked harder than usual. Some good conduct men, who have been living on the farms, even seem uneasy at the thought that they might be sent back to Italy. Under the Geneva Convention belligerent Rowers on an armistice make their own decision as to the repatriation of prisoners. Pending such a decision prisoners, if physically fit and below commissioned rank, can be kept at suitable work. REJOICING IN MOSCOW OVER ITALIAN SURRENDER. AND LIBERATION OF DONETZ BASIN. „ (Received This Day, 12.20 p.m.) LONDON, September 9. The news of Italy’s surrender aroused further enthusiasm among hundreds of thousands of Muscovites thronging the public squares of the capital, celebrating the liberation of the Donetz Basin, says the British United Press Moscow correspondent. The spontaneous reaction of the Russian public was one of unmitigated joy.