ITALIANS ARRESTED

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 13138, 12 September 1940, Page 8

ITALIANS ARRESTED

DEFEATIST TALK •R.A.F. BOMB MILITARY OBJECTIVES IN ERITREA RAID ON MALTA London, Sept. 10. A message from Rome says it is reliably stated that scores of Italians were arrested recently for defeatist and unpatriotic talk. An R.A.F. communique issued in Cairo states: “The R.A.F. bombed Massawa (Eritrea) and started fires, j “The South African Air Force raided Mogadishu (Italian Somaliland) and bombed a motor transport, started a fire, destroyed an aeroplane and damaged four others on the ground.

“It was observed that the main motor transport park which was attacked on August 28 was gutted. One enemy ’plane was shot down. “During the enemy raid on Malta last Saturday we shot down one enemy fighter and seriously damaged another.”

A Rome communique states; “Our air force started fires at Jaffa, blew up a train on the Mersa Matruh railway, and bombed and machine-gun-ned troop encampments in North Africa. The enemy raided a post in Cyrenaica. One person was .killed and four wounded. ‘Damage was insignificant. The enemy also attacked Massawa, Asmara and Dessie. Two persons were killed and three wounded in these raids.”

Tlie fourth list of casualties in the Italian army, issued in Rome, states that 78 were killed, 15 6 wounded and seven were missing in North Africa in August. For the same month in East Africa the figures were 50, 1,27 and 20; for the navy, period unstated, 88, 77 and 128; and the Air Force, 55, 128 and 131.