COMMAND OF SEA

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 45, 3 December 1940, Page 3

COMMAND OF SEA

BRITISH IN MEDITERRANEAN.

ITALIAN SUPPLIES CUT OFF.

(United Press Association —Copyright ) LONDON, December 1.

According to the naval correspondent of the “Manchester Guardian,” it is no longer possible for the Italians to maintain their lines of communication with their overseas armies.

They have provided, he says, the most ludicrous example of pplitical panic overpowering the reasoned thought of naval experts. By attempting to withdraw the main fleet from Taranto to Cagliari, which resulted in the battle off Sardinia last week, the Italian Naval/Command committed a major blunder. British naval experts have .thus been provided with an opportunity of summing up the new situation in the Mediterranean. Their conclusions are that Italy’s strategic dispositions have been broken, and the basis of Signor Mussolini’s defensive plans both in Albania and Libya has been endangered. The naval correspondent of “ The Times” especially calls attention to the improvement of British strategical dispositions as a result of the possession of Greek harbours—some of which are among the best in the world—as com-, pared with the situation/ when the Fleet was based at Alexandria, which is some 800 miles from the vital centres of Italy’s communications. The correspondent also points out that Suda Bay affords an excellent harbour at Crete and is 400 miles nearer than Alexandria to the localities in which naval operations against Italy can he most effectively carried on. Thus a 500-mile radius from Suda Bay, he claims, takes in Brindisi, Taranto, Messina, and Syracuse, while the Libyan ports, except Tripoli, are only 250 miles from Crete