SAD TALE OF COMMANDER
Battleship That Was Not
Sunk
LONDON, October 30. In London today the story of an Italian submarine commander has been told. On October 6, the Italians put out a communique saying that this commander had hit an American battleship of the Mississippi class with four torpedoes, and sent her to the bottom. .The Italians gave precise details of the time and place when this happened. The very next day Hitler awarded the commander the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, and Mussolini, riot to be outdone, gave him the Gold Medal for bravery, Italy's highest awar,d, and the commander was promoted to captain. But now it is learnt in London that the corvette, H.M.S. Petunia, was missed by four torpedoes fired from an Italian submarine at the exact time and place given in the Italian communique. So it turns out that the Italian submarine commander was decorated and promoted for failing to hit a corvette while aiming at a battleship which was not there.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP19421031.2.53
Bibliographic details
Evening Post, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 106, 31 October 1942, Page 7
Word Count
168SAD TALE OF COMMANDER Evening Post, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 106, 31 October 1942, Page 7
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