"Sweet and Easy"

Rome last week was a swirling, roaring, giddy spot. Balbo was coming home. Banners and draperies hung from every balcony. Streets were festooned with lanterns. Billboards and telephone poles were plastered with pictures of Italo Balbo and his officers. Electric signs blazed the proud boast: "At the Order of Il Duce All Goals Are Reached." Special trains, with cheap excursion fares for the occasion, streamed in with thousands and thousands of countryfolk from all over Italy. The fever of excitement blazed higher and higher as the Balbo armada covered its final lap.

There was a sad moment when Rome heard how the 24 seaplanes, which flew neatly from Newfoundland to the Azores, were cut to 23. Capt. Ranieri's ship

IRANI nosed over in the harbor of Horta "by an error of maneuvring," reported Balbo. One of its officers was killed, second to die in the second crackup since the squadron set out from Italy for the U. S. The accident was an excuse for General Balbo to decline a wearying round of ceremonies at Lisbon. However, he did find time for a bullfight in his honor, which he enjoyed so much that he gave his cigaret case to one matador, his revolver to another. In return he got a bull's ear.

From Lisbon the armada flew non-stop to its glorious homecoming. Practically all of Rome and its hordes of visitors flocked to Fiumicino Airport at the mouth of the muddy Tiber, 15 mi. outside the city, to see the planes arrive. As usual Balbo's triad landed first to a deafening frenzy of cheering, whistle-blowing, bell-clanging, cannon-shooting. The General taxied his plane alongside an improvised receiving stand (a derrick platform) where stood Benito Mussolini, Crown Prince Umberto, the King's aviator-cousin the Duke of Aosta, U. S. Ambassador Breckinridge Long. He stood on his plane's thick wing for a moment, arm outstretched in salute. Then he leaped ashore to be warmly kissed by Il Duce.

A procession of automobiles, with Mussolini & Balbo riding in the first one, took the officers & crew into Rome along Streets carpeted with laurel branches. A continuous blizzard of flowers and confetti all but buried the cavalcade. At the Piazza Colonna General Balbo made a speech: "We are humble soldiers of the great chief in whose name it is sweet and easy to win victory."

The reception reached a climax next day in a grand burst of Latin emotion. First the airmen, in white uniforms and glittering gold braid, were driven to the Quirinal to be greeted by the King. Then began a march on foot down Rome's new Via Trionfale (laurel-carpeted) beneath the Arch of Constantine, unused for such purpose since the ancient Romans paraded through it on returning from the wars. Up Palatine Hill the parade trooped, into the ruins of the Stadium where Il Duce awaited them in the modest uniform of a militia corporal. General Balbo stepped forward, received from Il Duce a biretta and gold eagle denoting him Italy's first Air Marshal. Then lieutenant-colonels of the squadron were promoted to colonels; captains to majors, mechanics to non-commissioned officers. A few chose the option of receiving decorations from the King in lieu of promotion.

Boomed Air Marshal Balbo: "I hope that as recompense for what we have accomplished, you will some day honor us by asking for our lives for Italy."

The armada rose again on the short last lap to Orbetello, whence it had set out last month, on whose bay 23 big ships sat down last week, in parade formation. Before the crews' final dismissal on a two-month furlough, they lined up at attention on the giant wings. They looked down at a motorboat chugging slowly past the ranks of seaplanes, at the erect, little King looking up at them.

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