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Naval History and Heritage Command

Naval History and Heritage Command

Edward N. Hurley, Chairman, United States Shipping Board, to Raymond B. Stevens, Vice-Chairman, United States Shipping Board and United States Representative, Allied Maritime Transport Council

Chronological Copy.                File No. 42-2-4

Cablegram Received July <12, 1918.> 10113.   SFM1

Origin    Opnav Washington.        Ser. No. S.M. 240

C-3  July 13

33 ADR

Simsadus.

Boards Navy 240 for Stevens from Hurley. Italian High Commission is urging shipping board to provide refrigerated space for 27,500 tons fresh meat monthly. It is impossible for us to furnish this tonnage and supply our own Army. Sending information to you so that you can develope possibility of help from other directions if situation as desperate as represented to be.2 23012.

Benson.3

Source Note: Cy, DNA, RG 45, Entry 517B.

Footnote 1: Initials of the transcriber.

Footnote 2: Italy suffered food shortages from the outset of the war. Russia supplied 20 percent of the wheat consumed in Italy and this sources was cut off as early as 1914. Shortages only worsened as domestic production never met demand leading to food riots. Francesco Galassi & Mark Harrison, “Italy at War: 1915-1918,” Stephen Broadberry & Mark Harrison, ed., The Economics of World War I (New York: Cambridge University Press, 205), 291.

Footnote 3: Adm. William S. Benson, Chief of Naval Operations.

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