II Duce's Ships

Splitting the foam-flecked blue waters of the Mediterranean the S. S. Rex, pride of Italy's rejuvenated merchant marine. last week completed her engine trials in triumph. One of the two biggest ships built since the War (51,000 tons), the Rex tore over her 600-mi. course at an average speed of 28 knots, became unofficially "the world's fastest liner."* At times her 125,,000 h. p. turbines drove her bulb-stemmed hull 29 knots. With her smaller sister the S. S. Conte di Savoia, she is Il Duce's supreme bid for traffic over the longer, warmer, and some say smoother southern route. When the Rex ploughs up New York Harbor seven days out of Naples on her maiden voyage in October, she will have sliced two full days from the southern run. With Italy only one sea day beyond Paris, Il Duce expects his Italia Line will now bring swarms of U. S. tourists to enrich his Fascist land. Time of the two big ships from Manhattan to Gibraltar will be four and a half days, to Nice, six and a half. In actual traveling time the octopi of Naples' famed Aquarium will be but one junket day farther from Manhattan than the Ritz Bar in Paris. Though head of no line, the driving force behind Italian shipping is short, bull-necked Count Costanza Ciano. Mussolini's closest associate. His son wed Mussolini's daughter Edda. Into Count Ciano's stout fists, Mussolini put the post office, the telegraph, all the railroads and last year all the shipping, of Italy. It was Count Ciano who arranged the mergers of Italy's greatest shipping lines, thereby saving from ruin not only the lines but also the big hanks which were heavily tied up in them. He it was who rushed to completion in record time the great Rex and Conte di Savoia at a period when Britain's Cunard Line was forced to abandon work on its 73,000-ton liner and the French Line dallied with its new super-Ile de France. Last year genial Count Ciano paid out 275,000,000 lire of Il Duce's revenues in ship subsidies. Since the S. S. Savannah first ploughed her way across the North Atlantic in 26 days in 1819, leading maritime nations have fought steadily for the speed honors of the Western Ocean. The "ocean greyhounds" at the turn of the century made the crossing in six to eight days. Before the War Britain and Germany had whacked the record down to five days. There it remained until North German Lloyd launched the Bremen and Europa in 1928 and 1929. The Bremen (51,656 tons) now holds the all-time record of 4 days, 14 hr., 30 min. from Ambrose Lightship to Plymouth. The Europa is 49,746 tons, both average about 26 knots. Italy's new Conte di Savoia has not yet had her speed trials, but like the Rex she is expected to cruise at about 27 knots, in a pinch turn up 29 knots. She is equipped with three giant gyroscopes to minimize roll. But like any ship, she will pitch. The super-Ile de France, expected to maiden-voyage in 1934. will be the world's biggest and fastest liner. Her plans call for a displacement of over 75,000 tons, a speed sufficient to drive her from Manhattan to Havre in four and a half days flat.

*World's fastest seagoing ships are destroyers which have exceeded 44 knots.

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