Brand New Navy

Swagger Shah Reza Khan Pahlavi, "King of Kings," itched with impatience last week to take delivery of the first effective Navy which Persia has ever had. Built complete in Italy for the dirt-cheap price of $2,000,000, Persia's new Navy consists of two small gunboats mounting four-inch, three-inch and anti-aircraft guns plus four smaller gunboats with three-inch guns. Last week, proudly flying Persia's leonine standard,* the Navy steamed out of Naples, bound for the Persian port of Mohammerah. Officers and crews of the six new ships are 100% Persian, smartly uniformed and painstakingly trained at the Italian Leghorn Naval Academy. As one Dictator to another, Benito Mussolini was delighted to build and sell a navy to the "King of Kings" who began his career as a soldier, became a Cossack, next a General, then Premier & Dictator, finally Shah of Persia in 1925.

*Three horizontal stripes (green, white, pink), the centre embellished with a blazing sun, in front of which a lion stands on three paws, brandishing a sword with its right forepaw and lashing its tail.

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