Viva Balbo!

The moment for which most of Italy and most of Chicago had long planned, occurred at 5:45 o'clock on a bright Saturday afternoon. It seemed as if everyone in Chicago had turned out. The lake front and the Century of Progress grounds were jammed with crowds centring in a tight mass at Navy Pier and trailing for miles along the shore. In front of the pier a square expanse of water was kept severely clear by patrol boats. Against its boundaries pressed a cluster of excursion boats, yachts, freighters, runabouts, canoes. Everywhere on shore the red, white & green of Italy fluttered overhead. Peddlers hawked pictures of Benito Mussolini, of King Victor Emanuel, of Italo Balbo.

Now & then a full throated "Viva Italia," or "Viva Balbo" burst from the mobs. Such was the scene at 5:45 p. m. when a youth with binoculars trained on the curtain of smoke over Gary, at the lake's southern tip, shouted: "Here they come!" In another moment everyone was telling his neighbor --"here they come"-- and pointing to a group of black specks emerging from the haze of Gary. A faraway hum grew louder as the specks separated into a dozen tiny winged forms, arranged in neat spearheads of threes, with smaller winged objects above them. Half mile be hind came another dozen. The crowds went wild with joy; Italians among them nearly burst. Here was General Balbo's armada of seaplanes at the glorious end of a glorious flight, 6,100 mi. from Italy. North along the lake front in a deafening roar of 40,000 h. p. swept the armada beneath its convoy of 42 Army planes from Selfridge Field. It paraded past the Century of Progress, past Navy Pier where the alert Italian pilots carefully gauged the area where they were to alight. A mile or so uptown, then back again to land into the wind. While the others wheeled about in the sky, maneuvering for position, down swooped the first triad. Everyone knew that the leading ship, marked by a big black star and the legend I-BALB carried General Balbo himself and Italian Ambassador Augusto Rosso who had been taken aboard as a passenger at Montreal. To right & left and respectfully to the rear, the flanking ships skimmed the water at the same moment, and all taxied past the official welcoming post to an ear-splitting salute of sirens, boat whistles, bells, and the hoarse shouts of thousands. For the next half-hour it was a continuous performance. Three more successive triads completed the first stormo of the squadron. Then came the twelve planes of the second stormo, their wings bearing white and green markings. Meanwhile, adding thrill to thrill, the U. S. escort planes paraded above the lake in a vertical formation spelling "ITALIA." Another hour passed before the last ship was moored to her buoy and General Balbo, who had changed from flying suit to braided khaki uniform & cap, and carrying gloves & stick, stepped from the thick wing of his ship into a small boat. He was whisked to the official reception boat, the Naval Militia training ship Wilmotte at Navy Pier, to be handshaken by Governor Homer, Chicago's Mayor Kelly and President Rufus Cutler Dawes of the Fair. After complaining that two sailboats had nearly fouled his seaplane in landing, General Balbo turned himself and his 95 officers & crew over to a dizzy round of entertainment. The first night some 60 smart Chicago matrons gathered at 8:30 to have dinner with the flyers at the Saddle & Cycle Club, waited with varying degrees of patience until 12:30 a. m. when General Balbo. hours behind in his appointments, showed up aglitter in white dress uniform. Following him came 15 of his men. Most of the rest, dog tired, had gone to bed. Speechmakers were hard put to find descriptive superlatives for the Balbo flight. As a feat of coordination between planes in flight, and particularly between planes and ground crews, it was unparalleled. Not until reaching Cartwright. Labrador, was the armada in comparative safety. The jumps from Orbetello to Amsterdam, to Ireland, to Iceland had been fairly easy --comparable to the practice flights which are part of Italian Air Force routine. But the 1,500-mi. drive through fog and the terrible threat of ice-on-wings, was the most severe hurdle. Then came the "downhill" laps to Shediac, N. B., to Montreal and finally to Chicago. A sad note was injected into the jubilation at Chicago when, at the Italo-American dinner, the toastmaster called the roll of Balbo's crew. Each man in turn arose to applause, answered "Present." At the end of the list the speaker called "Sergeant Ugo Quintavalle." (Sergeant Quintavalle had been killed at Amsterdam in the only mishap of the expedition.) Instantly 96 sturdy blackshirts jumped to their feet, chins held high, and chorused "Present." Also sad was the case of a lonely ground crew near Julienehaab. Greenland. For weeks they had waited there to give service to Balbo's planes in case they should choose to land en route from Iceland to Labrador. They never caught sight of the flying armada.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.