HEAVY DAMAGE

New Zealand Herald, Volume 78, Issue 24104, 24 October 1941, Page 7

HEAVY DAMAGE

ATTACK ON NAPLES LOW ITALIAN MORALE GERMANS IN CONTROL LONDON, Oct. 23 | A communique from Rome states j that Xaples was subjected to a fivehour air raid on Tuesday night, j Royal Air Force bombers came in j five waves and dropped hundred 1 ; of high explosive and incendiary bombs, causing heavy damage and j huge fires. Catania and Benghazi were also heavily raided. British reports state that Xaples was attacked by bombers from the Middle East. Fires eventually covered an area 400 yards square, flames rose 1000 feet and a column of smoke 12.000 feet high could be seen 80 miles away from the target. Many buildings were demolished and a railway station was sot. on fire. No British bombers were lost, The effect on morale of previous raids on Naples is known in London to have been disastrous, "Brink of Revolt" Reports hare reached Washington that the Italian people are on the brink of revolt. At the head is a group of army officers who are stated to be sabotaging Mussolini's orders to send more troops out of Italy at the request of Germany. The Italians make no secret of their fear of invasion by the British, and coast defences are being strengthened. Barbed wire barricades have been erected, and machine-gun posts and artillery batteries placed in position. Troops patrol the beaches. Similar measures have been taken in Sicily and Sardinia. The German economic experts, Funk and Clodius. are now in Rome. The visit oi the Nazi Economic Minister, Funk, to Italy and the glowing picture which ho has painted in Rome of Italy's trade future in the Mediterranean, are regarded in London as further signs oi complete Nazi domination, Duce Disillusioned The Times says: "Mussolini has himself become a virtual prisoner of the Gestapo, which is not as übiquitous in Italy as in other vassal countries or as in Germany itself. He is now no longer the 'Duce of Italy, but the gauleiter of the Italian provinces in the German Reich. "Any dream he may have had of being treated as an equal partner by his fellow gangster must have been finally despatched by the way in which Italian feelings and Italian interests have been disregarded in the Balkans. Italian troops, it is true, are being allowed to do some of the 'donkey work of holding down the enslaved Greeks and Yugoslavs, but all decisions on policy are made by the Germans. The humiliations of the 'position, for those Italians who still retain a sense of national pride and national honour, must be still harder to bear than the material hardships which the position entails." The British Minister of Economic Warfare, Dr. Hugh Dalton, said that sooner or later the Italians must declare against Mussolini, just as the Germans must declare against Hitler. GIFT OF CORVETTE LONDON, Oct. 23 The Nizam of Hyderabad has given a corvette to the Royal Navy. The ship was launched yesterday by the Secretary of State for India, Mr. L. S. Amerv.