(See front cover)
On the coast of Tuscany, 100 miles northwest of Rome, lies the tiny port of Orbetello. The protecting shoulder of a great mountain (from which Napoleon's Elba can be seen 40 miles out to sea) guards it from high winds. Long sand spits make the mountain look "like a great ship moored by its three ropes of sand"; more important, they make smooth as a millpond the blue lagoons lying on either side of the town. There in winter fat eels are snared for the Christmas tables of Italy. There in summer wealthy Italian families lounge. And there is the famed seaplane school of the Italian Air Force.
Orbetello hotels were filled last week with females young & old, beauteous & unlovely. They were the women folk of 100 aviators who awaited the signal to start the biggest show ever staged by Italian aviation: the mass flight of 25 seaplanes across the ocean to Chicago and A Century of Progress.
For a few fluttery days the women were permitted to roam the air station arm-in-arm with the flyers. For months the men had been confined in monastic seclusion lest any of them get off mental or emotional balance. Under the fanatical hawkeye discipline of their commander, Col. Aldo Pellegrini, they dined together at a severely vegetarian training table. The hours of each day were strictly apportioned to flight practice, study, outdoor sport, sleep. A wife who tried to see her husband at Orbetello was brusquely informed at the gate: "All the pilots of the Atlantic squadron are bachelors." Indignantly she hurried home, exhumed her marriage certificate, stormed the Air Ministry at Rome. But she was not permitted to see her husband until the visitors' days last week.
With discipline relaxed the pilots amused themselves like college footballers on the eve of a Big Game. One restless fellow laid hold of Marco, the squadron's donkey mascot, painted zebra stripes on him. Others held a mock election for the recipient of an ivory plaque carved with the figure of an eagle clutching the Italian flag in its mouth. The plaque had been sent by a girl in Rome to "the pilot who has no sweetheart." The pilots elected Lieut. Cadringheri, and all autographed a picture of one of the squadron's seaplanes to send to the girl. The horseplay was interrupted when Col. Pellegrini mustered the men of the squadron into line on the quay, facing the 25 big seaplanes bobbing at moorings. The stage was set. Upon it stepped the imposing figure of General Italo Balbo, Minister of Aviation, supreme commander of the Atlantic flight. To General Balbo, Col. Pellegrini said:
"I present 100 persons of flesh, and 100 hearts of steel!"
Replied General Balbo: "I greet you all as a commander and a companion. We are ready with tranquil spirit. I am not unmindful of danger?. . . . But these are not inferior to our destiny."
Right arms extended, commander & crew recited in unison the Fascist oath:
"We will make ourselves worthy soldiers of the King and worthy soldiers of the Italy created by our leader [nostra Duce]."