DIKE'S TROUBLES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 3, 4 January 1941, Page 9

DIKE'S TROUBLES

AIR, LAND AND SEA.

SOMALILAND FIASCO.

HIS DWINDLING EMPIRE.

(By COL. FREDERICK PALMER.)

WASHINGTON, December 3

Only Premier Mussolini knows all h\> troubles as an orator turned warrior. Much as he tries to cancel them, trustworthy reports show how they arc continuing to mount in military difficulties in quarters other thau Albania.

The while S.O.S. calls come from a convoy in the new graveyard of British shipping off the west coast of Ireland Mussolini is hearing distress calls from Ethiopia, the westernmost i>art of the young Italian Empire <-o grandiloquently inaugurated. His army in Ethiopia took British Sonialiland only to have its burning j stretch of desert blister hie bands on stretched in imperial ambition. Material and effort were expended in that venture without preventing Britain's control of the Gulf of Aden and her Eastern entry into the Suez Canal. Besieged Garrisons. The Italian garrisons in Xorth-\Vc*t Africa arc shut off by the British blockade from receiving supplies through the Suez. They arc literally in siege by sea power without the British firing "a shot at them, their attack westward on Kenya held up. Gasoline and other vital necessities in small quantities, and any letters or newspaf-cre the soldier* get from home are being sent by plane from Libya over Egypt. Interested parties arc bootlegging arms to the restive Ethiopians, who are beginning to harass the army outposts and road-building and making life uncertain for the Italian peasants drafted and regimented to settle in the tropic land of promise. Not only has Mussolini to divert reinforcements from his army in Libya tr» Albania, but singularly winter is against him in both land operations. hi one ease there is a lack of water and in the other too much snow and mud. !n the Libyan desert the we Ik begin to dry up at this season. This year they are drying up earlier than usual under the demand* upon them, and winter seems to be ahead of schedule in Albania. If the advance of the Greeks into Albania is inevitably not so rapid when they have to bring up their material and consolidate their positions the fact that they continue to gain ground i« regularly confirmed by the Italian commu--1 niques, which arc lame admissions of Italian retreats. The Greeks are putting more* and more mountains behind them. These the Italian* have to conquer, not for the invasion of Greece, but to recover what they have lost of Albania. The Torpedoe Sortie. Xeutral correspondents were shown the Italian naval ships, which were in the recent naval action off the we*t coast of Italy, in proof that the British had exaggerated the damage doue. This is apparently true. But the Italian ships fled, to port from an attack in which they had gunfire soierior to the British. But no correspondents were taken to Taranto to see the results of the British air raid. Expert professional eyee in studying the air photographs taken by the British after the raid at least confirm the British claim in large part. It is no longer a mystery how this outstanding success of planes against ebips in this war was accomplished. In preparation for a sortie the Italians had removed the nets at the entrance to the harbour. Thie gave the British planes sufficient sweep for launching their torpedoes, which should be about 1000 yards, since the torpedo dives below the right depth to which it rises and automatically adjust* itself. I In so small a harbour the ships were eo close together that if a torpedo missed the ship aimed at, might very likely hit another. And, of course, a torpedo, which can punch a hole in a ship's hull and sink or ground her, is far more dangerous than a "bomb dropped on deck. Australians in Greece. Amazing as it seems in face of Italian naval superiority on paper, wishful thinking is authentically demonstrated reality in Britain's control of the Mediterranean. She still holds Malta, close to the Italian mainland, which, was generally considered untenable at the outset of the war. Her naval forces in the eastern and western Mediterranean are far from being divided; not only that but, it is said, transports are going through the narrow passage between Sicily and the African coast, in epitc of the supposedly stronglv fortified island of Pantelleria. By all accounts Britain, too, has made her new base in Crete secure. One Australian division (about 15,000 men) is in Greece. The way seems clear for further reinforcements from home or Egypt. In case Adolf Hitler goes to Mussolini'e aid Britain might be able to occupv Salonika with sufficient force for a Ion" and dogged defence of that vital port! She has not the shipping to spare, and there arc not enough port facilities or roads inland for her to send a huge armv in a land offensive against Germany, no't now at least. Her transports would have to be guarded from Hitler on the Altantic, although it would be easy to get them by Mussolini in the Mediterranean.—N.A.N.A.