Twenty-five, Less One

A mighty cheer went up from the seven hills around Lough Foyle. Londonderry's tidy harbor, as General Italo Balbo's seaplane armada circled the city with a fearful roar of 48 wide-open motors. They paraded the sky in platoons of six"black-hulled, red, green, white"each platoon being formed by two tight triads. Soon all were moored, and General Balbo and his officers went ashore in motorboats to tread rose petals, cast by Italian children on their way to Londonderry's Guildhall. The 24 seaplanes rode at moorings, drinking gasoline by the hundred-gallon in preparation for the next jump to Iceland, en route to Chicago. But there were 25 that took off from the home base at Orbetello the morning before (TIME, June 26). Twenty-five crossed the Alps at Spluga Pass, roared over Zurich and Basle, and trailed shadows on the soil of Strasbourg, Mannheim, Cologne. The 25 wheeled over Amsterdam to be saluted in the air by a convoy of 60 Dutch seaplanes celebrating the 20th birthday of the Royal Dutch Air Force with a mass formation of their own. Down came the first black triad, led by the plane labelled I-BALB (Balbo's), to a neat landing in the Zuider Zee. Loud cheers from the throngs on the dikes. Down came the next led by I-PELL (Pellegrini). Then the first red group--I-DINI (Captain Baldini at the controls). Inexplicably the leading red plane smacked the water like a cannonball, somersaulted once, settled into the mud. Captain Baldini and three crewmen were fished out alive, but Sergeant Quintavalle was dead.

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