Recent Ministerial statements in Rome plainly indicate the reorientation of Italian strategy which has taken place in the past two years. Gen. Valle, Under-Secretary for Air. has dwelt on "the radical change which has occurred in the strategical field assigned to our air arm."
The centre of gravity, he states, has "'clearly shifted from the Valley of the Po towards the Mediterranean, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. This explains the strengthening of the air bases in Sicily, Sardinia, the ZEgean Islands, Pantellaria, and Tobruk (Libya)." He added that "air divisions are now able to pass in a few hours from one part of the Mediterranean to the other."
But the Sicily-Cape Bon passage is evidently not the only point at which Italy proposes to have the power, in certain contingencies, of severing the Mediterranean route from west to east. From the new naval headquarters at Tripoli -to Sicily is a distance of less than 270 miles, and an imaginary line drawn from Tri-Poli to Syracuse would bisect the British island of Malta.
Still further to the east is the third possible line of blockade, running in this instance from Leros—the powerful Italian aero-naval base in the iDodecanese—south*West to Tobruk, the easternmost Mibyan base, which is only 60 miles from the Egyptian Both Leros and Tobruk are claimed to be within air-distance of Alexandria and Cyprus, both of which are recognized aş.emergency British bases, while=Malta is, of course, less than half an hour's flight from Sicily.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.