and Paris, became fashionable. Captain Joseph Blancart and his chief purser, Henri Villar, became celebrities. With the contribution made by this splendid vessel, the CGT ended the year 1928 with record earnings. For the first time the company's receipts exceeded a billion francs, and half of this derived from the New York service, which had transported more than 90,000 passengers. Its popularity was such that by 1935, the ship had carried more first-class passengers than any other transatlantic liner. The ship was popular especially among wealthy Americans. It quickly became the chosen ship of the youthful, the stylish, and the famous. But they did not choose it for its speed – it was about as fast as the Aquitania of 1914, and no larger. In 1936 it was immortalised in the song "A Fine Romance" performed by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in the film with the lyric "You're just as hard to land as the Île de France". Even though Île de France was not the fastest vessel in the world, it briefly pioneered the quickest mail system between Europe and the United States. In July 1928, a seaplane catapult was installed at the ship's stern for trials with two CAMS 37 flying boats that launched when the ship was within 200 miles, which decreased the mail delivery time by one day. This practice proved too costly, however, and in October 1930 the catapult was removed and the service discontinued. In 1935 Île de France and Paris were joined by a new mate, the new superliner . With these three ships the CGT could boast of having the largest, fastest, and most luxurious ships traveling the north Atlantic. But this was not to endure, and two events ended the CGT's new prosperity. The first occurred on April 18, 1939, when Paris was destroyed by fire while docked in Le Havre. The second was on September 1, 1939 when Nazi Germany invaded Poland which began World War II and ended civilian (as opposed to military) transatlantic traffic. World War II Île de France was the last civilian ship to leave France before the outbreak of war. She departed from Le Havre on the morning of September 3, 1939, just hours before France and the United Kingdom declared war on Germany. (The last ship to leave Europe during the war would be the paquebot Jamaique that left in May 1940 from