CAPTURE OF DEEP-WATER HARBOURS

Evening Star, Issue 24915, 13 July 1943, Page 3

CAPTURE OF DEEP-WATER HARBOURS

SUPPLY TASK GREATLY EASED (ißec. 11.45 a.m.) LONDON, July 12. The capture of Syracuse and Licata, both -.' deep-water harbours, should greatly ease the Allies' task of supplying the forces, says the British United Press military correspondent. It also places the forces at a point where they can by-pass the comparatively wild hilly country lying in the south-east tip of Sicily * . The country north of Syracuse is low-lying, and should enable; pur naval forces to give easy support to any move along the coastal area._ Of the three aerodromes captured, Licata and Paehino are quite small, and offer no great facilities, although they can be used by fighters. Gela aerodrome is fairly large, but all three aerodromes are a.t present too close to the front line to allow the Allied air forces to operate from them very extensively. It is considered unlikely that enemy has many bombers still based in Sicily. He may have at the most a few light bombers.

The latest trend in Italian propaganda is indicated by thejofncial Italian News Agency's circulation of 12 conditions, wliich, it says, the Allies will impose in the event of the sucessful invasion ot Italy. The points are: Surrender of Italian fleet; suppression of metallurgical'and engineering industries;/reduction of the Italian army to the bare minimum necessary for the maintenance of order; abolition of the army's tanks, artillery, and machine guns; cession of Pantellaria, Tobruk. La Maddelena, and other strategic bases to Britain; cession of Istria, Pola. and Trieste to Yugoslavia; cession of several; lonian and iEgean islands to Greece; surrender of Italy's colonial empire for an indefinite period; suppression of the cultivation of cereals and limitation of agriculture to vegetable growing; and suppression of many universities and the abolition of classical teaching to/ prevent Italian youth from learning of the greatness of Rome.