Berne, July 12.
The Swiss public is greatly agita ated over a mysterious aeroplane disaster on the St. Gothard glacier where a French machine smashed on the mountainside head on after its sole occupant had. jumped 150 feet to the ground whence he was rescued with severe injuries and rusked to the Andermatt hospital, When he recovered consciousness for a short while, the pilot declared in incoherent words that he had started from Lo Bourget aerodrome, for Bellinzona but had lost. rection in a heavy fog, mistaking the St. Gothard for the Sim-plan pass.
As the St. Gothard is the key-point of the Swiss defences and fly ig over it, therefore, st ited, it was at first named Giovanni Gossignosi, made the flight for the Italian intelligence service in order to spy out the Swiss defence system. However, this theory was abandoned when it was learned that on Friday afternoon an unidentified aeroplane flying at great altitude had dropped approximately 100,000 anti-Fascist leaflets over the city of Milan where, the police and militia were called out to prevent the crowds from picking up the leaflets which violent ly attacked the Fascist regime.
It is, therefore, now assumed that.
Gossignosi is identical with that my-serious pilot who was responsible with the Milan leaflet barrage and that he lost his way when chased by, number of Italian battle planes which were sent up by the Italian' authorities in order to bring the machine down on Italian territory. The Swiss authorities now believe that this version is right inasmuch as it was found out that the smashed machine was registered in the name of the director of the Paris royalist newspaper "Action Frangaise" which decidedly anti-Fascist.
Further investigations revealed that the injured pilot's name Bassanesi and that he was in the possession of passports in three different names which further deepens the mystery of the case.
July 13.
The Italian Bassanesi recovered sufficiently to make a statement wherein he confirmed that he was identical with the aviator who, on Friday afternoon, dropped thousands of anti-Fascist leaflets over Milan and that he had lost his directior back to Lo Bourget aerodrome when pursued by Italian military planes which were sent up by the authorities as soon as the nature of the leaflets had been found out.
Bassanesi also stated that on his from Paris to Milan he had landed at a small Swiss aerodrome near Bellinzona where he was supplied with the leafers from truck without exciting the suspicion of the aerodrome officials. Details regarding the truck, the printing-plant and the people who supplied! the leaflets and financed the whole undertaking, Bassanesi refused to] divulge.
He also failed to account for the three passports bearing his picture but with different names which were discovered in the smashed plane.
The Swiss Press while expressing, dislike of the idea that the country might in any way be drawn into] the conflict between the Italian] government and the anti-Fascists, does not conceal its admiration of the sporting spirit and courage of he flyer who must have known that, case he was captured by the Italian authorities or for other reasons had to descend on Italis territory, his fate would have been, sealed—Trans-Ocean Kuo Min,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.