José Bozzano
José Alfredo Bozzano Baglietto (Asunción, Paraguay, December 7, 1895 – December 14, 1969) was a military engineer and senior officer of the Paraguayan Navy who designed the gunboats Paraguay and Humaitá that were used during the Chaco War in the key role of armed transport ships. In the course of the war, he was the manager of the factories which produced weapons, ammunition, trucks and other equipment for the Paraguayan army. Life José Alfredo Bozzano Baglietto was born on December 7, 1895 in the Asunción neighborhood of San Jerónimo, "just fifty metres from the Dockyards", which at that time was located there. The birth date is contained in official documents and was confirmed by his grandson, engineer Luis Lamas Bozzano, curiously because he gave another date (1899) "to remove a few years; pure coquetry", as stated at times his wife, Mrs. Virginia Cardozo of Bozzano, who in turn was the daughter of educator Ramon Indalecio Cardozo and sister of politician Efraím Cardozo. His parents were the Genoese ship owner José Bozzano and the Argentine citizen Benedicta Baglietto. Bozzano spoke Italian, English, French and Guaraní fluently and had extensive knowledge of classical Greek and Latin. He read Stefan Zweig, Emerson, Kant, Schiller and Goethe. His favorite Paraguayans writers were Manuel Domínguez, Cecilio Báez, Fariña Eloy Núnez, Carlos Zubizarreta and Rubén Bareiro Saguier. He learned piano with Nicolino Pellegrini. Bozzano lingered on Chopin and enjoyed Paraguayan music (his favorite song was Ñasaindypé, composed by Félix Férnandez and José Asunción Flores). Education Bozzano was educated at the Colegio Nacional at Asunción, studying the career of lawyer until the third year. He joined the Paraguayan Navy as midshipman on September 21, 1917. Since April 1918 he served in the state-owned national dockyards. In May 1920, the government of José P. Montero (1919–1920) sent him to the United States for further studies of Naval Engineering. He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1924, Bozzano graduated as a naval architect and engineer. He went on to graduate school and in 1925 received a master's degree in Aviation Engineering. Bozzano returned to Paraguay during the constitutional government of Eligio Ayala (1924–1928). On March 9, 1925, he was appointed director of the national dockyards, by decree nº 20297. In March 1927, president Ayala commissioned him to Europe for ordering the construction of two gunboats for the Navy that would protect the Paraguay River in the imminent war with Bolivia. Bozzano departed with the plans that he himself had traced. After contacts with shipyards in England and Germany, the gunboats were eventually ordered from the Italian Odero Terni Orlando shipyard in Genoa. The two vessels, Paraguay and Humaitá, arrived in Paraguay on May 5, 1931. On December 28 of that year, Bozzano returned to the direction of the national dockyards. Chaco War The dockyards produced more than 300,000 hand grenades, the famous carumbe `i (Guaraní for "little turtle"), which, for the pride of Paraguayans in the war, proved more effective than the Belgian designed SIP grenades, used by