“MISERABLE JOKE”

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21150, 19 July 1943, Page 3

“MISERABLE JOKE”

ITALIAN EQUIPMENT GROSSLY BAD FOOD HATRED OF GERMANS NEW YORK, July 18. “Italian aircraft are mostly outmoded, their tanks are a miserable joke, and their, artillery ludicrous," says the New York Times correspondent in Sicily, Mr. John Gunther. “This is the price the Italian people are paying for false leadership. British and American experts in Sicily are amazed at the pitiful inadequacy of Italian equipment and material. Even food supplies are grossly bad. Tinned meat is rotten and canned soup is like dish-water. Many ration boxes were found to have a thin layer of provisions on top with gravel beneath. “The Italians are good mechanics and brave soldiers, but they enter battle in death-trap tanks which a single hit envelops in flames. One reason for the inadequate equipment is the unwillingness of the Fascist industrialists to retool their plants. Corruption, abounded in civil and economic life. Every man was a complete boss of those below him and a complete slave to those above. "The Italians hate the Germans who dragged them into the tragedy. The Nazis are contemptuous towards their dilapidated allies. Our troops picked up anti-German leaflets issued by the Italians in various areas.”