User:VarunSoon/MS Augustus

MS Augustus was a combined ocean liner and cruise ship built in 1927 for Navigazione Generale Italiana. The ship was later transferred to the new Italian Line after the merger of Navigazione Generale Italiana. Her sister ship was SS Roma. The ship was eventually converted into an Italian aircraft carrier Sparviero (Italian language: "Sparrowhawk"). The conversion was started in 1942 and was almost completed, but the ship was never delivered to the Regia Marina. She began to be scrapped in 1946, a process completed by 1952.

Career
After the end of World War I many German liners had been seized by the allies to replace passenger ships lost to torpedoes and mines, such as the White Star Line's HMHS Britannic and the Cunard Line's RMS Lusitania. These seized liners included the Hamburg America Line's three ship Imperator class, consisting of Imperator, Bismarck, Vaterland, which were given to the United Kingdom and the United States.

Many shipping companies were planning to built a new liners when they had enough money. Navigazione Generale Italiana decided to build two new liners of over 30,000 gross tons for post war service. The first ship was Roma which was launched in 1926. The second ship was launched in December 1926 at the Ansaldo Shipyard and was christened Augustus. She was fitted out to make her maiden voyage on November 10, 1927. Her interior was decorated in the Baroque style unlike Ill de France which was decorated with Art Deco style. She was the largest diesel engined passenger ship of her time, unlike her sister which had geared steam turbines. She was 717 feet long and was designed to carry 2,200 passengers. She was placed on the South American service while her sister ran the North Atlantic service. She could reach her destination within five days, with an average speed of 22 knots. In 1932, her company was forced to merge with other Italian shipping companies to form the Italian Line. Because of this, her funnels were repainted to Italian Line's colours. In 1933, she was transferred to carry out 129-day world cruises after the Wall Street Crash of 1929. She carried many passengers from New York to a number of ports around the world and back to New York in 129 days. Both Augustus and Roma were initially laid up in 1939 after the outbreak of World War II. Both ships were subsequently taken over by the Italian Navy. Like her sister, she was converted into an aircraft carrier and renamed Falco and later Sparviero. In 1944, both ships were taken over by Nazi. But in September 25 in the same year, she was scultted in order to block the Genoa habor from Allies. After the war ended, she was raised and towed to scrapped in 1946.

As the Sparviero


In 1936, Augustus was also prepared for a project to transform into the 30,418 GRT auxiliary carrier. The idea was initially abandoned but then resumed in 1942.

She was renamed Falco (Italian language: Falcon) and then Sparviero, the passenger ship Augustus would have had to undergo major changes to the superstructure with the installation of controcarene. She would had also been equipped with a single hangar with two lifts and fitted with a flight deck that ended 45 meters before the bow. She would have had a narrow runway hunt for the 34 or 16 more fighter bombers 9 / siluranti that had been provided in the final plans.

The conversion began in September 1942, the work undertaken by the Ansaldo Shipyard in Genoa. However, the work was never finished. The hull was captured by the Germans and was sunk on 5 October 1944 to block access to the port of Genoa. The wreckage was recovered after the war and finally scrapped in 1951.

Like the Sparviero, the Italian aircraft carrier Aquila, a modification of the sister ship of the Augustus, SS Roma (1926), was scuttled and scrapped before the conversion into the aircraft carrier was finished. These two ships were the last attempts at building aircraft carriers for the Italian Navy until 1981, when work began on the Giuseppe Garibaldi.