Augustus (ship, 1926)
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The Augustus was an Italian passenger ship .
history
At the end of 1927, the Augustus and her sister ship Roma were put into service by the Italian shipping company Navigazione Generale Italia . It was supposed to compete with the ships of the Savoyische Loyd shipping company on the Genoa- South America route . Both ships were very luxurious and very fast for their time. In contrast to the Roma , where there were only the conventional three classes, a fourth class was set up on the Augustus . Here the prices were extremely cheap.
By order of Benito Mussolini in 1932, the shipping companies were merged. The new shipowner of Augustus was now called Società di Navigazione-Flotte Riunite . In 1933 the Augustus made a trip around the world in 129 days. She left New York City , through the Mediterranean Sea , the Suez Canal , to India , Japan back to New York City.
From the second half of the 1930s, the ship became visibly obsolete.
After a general overhaul in Genoa, the Augustus was drafted in 1941 by the Italian Navy to be converted into an aircraft carrier . It was only supposed to be a simple conversion to a smooth-deck carrier , not to be compared with the total conversion of the sister ship Roma into the aircraft carrier Aquila . The ship, now known as Sparviero , should not have an “island” as a smooth-deck carrier - the structure on the carrier deck with all command functions for ship and aircraft. Work began in Genoa in September 1942. For this carrier, as well as for the Aquila , the Italians bought German aircraft carrier technology. Until the German occupation of Italy in September 1943, only the superstructures of the passenger ship were removed.
The Sparviero was sunk as a block ship by the German troops in Genoa on October 5, 1944 , to reduce the width of the port entrance, and thus served for better military control of the port access. In 1946 the wreck was lifted and scrapped in 1947.
literature
- Riccardo Magrini: Ships . Kaiserverlag, Klagenfurt 2006, ISBN 3-7043-1422-6