CITY OF DEAD

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 227, 24 September 1943, Page 3

CITY OF DEAD

NAPLES FIGHTING Over 120 Have Already Died From Cholera N.Z. Press Association—Copyright Rec. 11 a.m. LONDON, Sept. 23. Naples is rapidly becoming a city of the dead. The Italians continue to fight the Germans and disease is spreading, state accounts from inside the stricken city. The Germans blocked almost every shipping berth along the doeks while trying to smash Italian nests of resistance in the rabbit-warren streets behind the harbour front. Italian soldiers and people are lighting back as best they can, hoping for the day when the Allies break into the city to relieve them. No real attempts seem to have been made to extinguish the fires along the waterfront. Instead, new explosions, the result of German demolitions, constantly increase the blaze. Air photographs taken by Allied planes reveal that the Germans are destroying the great harbour works, and that at least 30 ships have been scuttled. _ The city had oil refineries, ironworks, munition and aircraft factories all within a few miles of the centre A great black cloud hangs like a' funeral pall over the living dead. Smoke climbs into the blue Mediterranean sky, fouling 11 the filth of burning oil and rubber and the contents of a score of warehouses and factories. Fighting is going on in the rums between German armoured units and Italian soldiers. Complete chaos reigns. Choi-era is spreading and over 120 people have already died. The hospitals are overcrowded with sick and wounded. Thousands of citizens are fleeing daily into the mountains Much of Naples was smashed by hnmbs before the Allied invasion of Now the Germans are completing the job. EAGER TO FIGHT INTERNED ITALIAN SEAMEN Rec. 11- RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep. 23. Italian merchant seamen interned in Brazil have asked United Nations officials for permission to enter the war to free Italy. . IC! n A spokesman declared that 130 of 200 seamen were eager to fight Fascism. Sixty had not decided and 10 had refused. PUPPET REGIME MUSSOLINI'S "GOVERNMENT" Rec. 1.30 p.m. LONDON, Sept. 23. Berlin radio announced that the composition of the new Italian Fas--cist Government includes Mussolini as Premier and Foreign Minister, Oraziani as Defence Minister, Buffarini as Minister of the Interior, and Pelegrini as Minister of Finance. ROYAL CANADIAN NAVY REINFORCED FROM BRITAIN Rec. 11 a.m. OTTAWA, Sept 23. Panada received six destroyers from Britain in 1943, and will receive STiS' S S S, li« d S % Angui W He expressed the hope that the Royal Canadian Navy would never be redumed to its insignificant p war status. N.Z. GIFT ACCEPTED Rec 11.30 a.m. LONDON, Sept. 23. The New Zealand Government has offered to panel and furnish a room in the reconstructed City of Londo ruildhall. To-day's meeting of the City of London Council has decided to thank the Dominion warmly foi the generous gift.