ITALIAN NAVY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 109, 8 April 1936, Page 9

ITALIAN NAVY.

LARGE-SCALE PROGRAMME. CONTROL IN MEDITERRANEAN. LONDON, April 7. The Daily Telegraph’s naval correspondent, Mr H. C. Bywater, says that Italy is planning a big naval programme immediately the Abyssinian war is over aiming at absolute control of the south-eastern Mediterranean, and the highway eastward. The programme includes the rapid completion of two 35,000-ton battlecruisers, the Vittorio Venito and the Littorio, ,the construction of more cruisers, destroyers, and submarines, additional naval aircraft, and new fortified bases and aerodromes in Sardinia, Sicily, Libya and Eritrea. Exercises to test the practicability of blocking the Mediterranean route between Southern Italy and Africa have already been carried out. The French naval bases.at Bizerta and Tunis are not regarded as serious obstacles to Italy’s new ambition, as it is claimed that they could be rendered untenable by an overpowering air offensive. Both are less than an hour’s flight from Italian aerodromes. Malta, which is only 65 miles from Sicily, could, it is claimed, be similarly neutralised. There are at present 400 Italian aircraft in Sicily and Sardinia. Italian spokesmen declare that the new policy is purely defensive, but any Power attacking Italy might have to reckon with total stoppage of its Eastern trade.