Yesterday's La Vanguardia said the British fled from Salerno and Cape Licosa; today's Tribune called it "another Dunkirk." At the Astoria, Schaer set me straight: "All bunk. We didn't evacuate; retreat ... yes, but we're there and staying there." A British naval bombardment and 3,000 aerial bomb-loads blunted a German counter-attack. Salerno changed hands three times, but is now in our hands. Only when I saw the Commentator's statement that the Anglo-Americans would be "wiped out of the Italian coast" was I fully convinced that we were there to stay.

La Vanguardia told the story of Mussolini's liberation — an Austrian captain was the hero. The Italians probably fled when they saw the nine German soldiers. History is going to be awful tough on them. Italians now have to wear yellow armbands here. One boarded a carretela today, and the cochero pointed inquisitively at his armband. "Enemy alien," he said proudly. The cochero refused payment. A friend commented, "If he had said he was Italian, the cochero would have charged him double."