Barcelona, July 30.
A young Italian pilot, Giovanni Spelzi, 23 years old, landed in Republican territory in his plane a few days ago, and declared that he had deserted the Nationalists owing to his hatred of Fascism.
Outlining his career in the Italian air force in Spain, the pilot declared that he had been ordered to leave Genoa on April 16 for Sevilla. Upon his arrival he was immediately incorporated into the legionary aviation at the Logrono airport.
He stated that Italian pilots handled the pursuit planes while German airmen were entrusted with bombers.
He was in charge of a pursuit squadron whose task it was to machine-gun troops. He estimated at 150 the number of Italian pursuit planes in the Nationalist service.
The youth stated that the majority of the population on Nationalist territory were unaware of the bombing of open cities carried out by the Nationalist air force—Havas.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.