Death of a Dirigible

by John Toland

From: American Heritage
February
1969, Volume X, Number 2

Over Lakehurst, New Jersey, the sky was
unsettled on the afternoon of September 2, 1925. At times it was almost clear;
then ominous clouds would scud across the field of the Naval Air Station and
disappear as quickly as they had come. The airship Shenandoah, nose to
her high mooring mast, was floating gracefully with the variable breezes. Her
twenty gas bags were about 91% full; her tanks loaded with 9,075 pounds of water
and 16, 620 pounds of gasoline. Sailors were riding up the elevator to the top
of the mast. The 682-foot ship- her Indian name meant "Daughter of the Stars"-
was almost ready for her fifty-eighth flight, a tour of Midwest state fairs.
Everybody wanted to see the flying battleship.

Commander Zachary
Lansdowne, the Shenandoah's skipper, had not liked the original orders for this
trip. A native of Greene Ville, Ohio, he was familiar with the line squalls that
swept over that part of the country during the summer, and he had officially
requested that the tour be postponed. The navy had put it off until early
September, but rejected any further delay. It would disappoint too many
thousands. And besides, the Shenandoah had already flown 25,000 miles in all
kinds of weather. Now almost the entire crew of 41 officers and men, together
with two observers, had gone aboard. Not far from the base of the mast,
Lansdowne was talking quietly with his wife. An Annapolis graduate with
considerable lighter-than-air experience before taking command of the
Shenandoah, Lansdowne was a tall, rangy, rawboned man who had a reputation as a
strict disciplinarian aloft, but also as an understanding and affable officer
who lent a sympathetic ear to the personal problems of his crew.

At 2:52
P.M. the nose cone of the ship slid gently from the socket of the mast. The
dirigible lifted slowly. Water ballast streamed first from amidships, then from
the tail- 2,225 pounds of it in all.

The Shenandoah swung around the mast and a few
minutes later headed west into the uncertain sky. Margaret Lansdowne turned her
back as the dirigible sailed out over the pine woods. So did the other wives who
had come to the field. It was considered bad luck to watch your husband's ship
fade out of sight. The graceful Shenandoah was the first rigid dirigible made in
America. Started in 1920 at the naval aircraft factory in Philadelphia, its
construction had been held up many months by the failure of Congress to pass
appropriations. The design of the Shenandoah was almost identical with that of
the captured wartime German Zeppelin, the L-49, but American navy engineers had
made one great step forward. From a natural gas found in exploitable form and
quantity only in the United States they had succeeded in isolating helium, so
inert that it could not be set afire with a match. The airshipman's greatest
fear, fire, would now be a thing of the past.

But since helium had only
92.6 per cent of the lifting power of the inflammable hydrogen used in German
airships, a section ten meters long had been added to the middle of the
Shenandoah. In addition, the bow had been strengthened to withstand the strain
of mast landings, the fins and rudders had been redesigned, and a walkway for
in-flight inspection had been fitted outside the envelope along the very top of
the ship. The rigid dirigible, invented by Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, had
been greatly improved upon during World War I by his German countrymen. Already
it had accomplished great feats: two dirigibles, the British R-34 (with
Lansdowne aboard as an American observer) and the German LZ-126, had crossed the
Atlantic, and another German ship, the L-72, had been flown by French airshipmen
on a nonstop, 4,500 mile trip in 118 hours and 41 minutes. Now, with the slender
Shenandoah, the United States was attempting to take the lead in the
international airship field. In her first flights the Shenandoah had captured
the imagination of the world. Her triumphs had been many; she had been moored to
the mast of a navy tanker, the Patoka, at sea; she had successfully weathered a
winter gale after being torn from her mast at Lakehurst; and she had made a
triumphant round trip to the Pacific Coast.

Now, an hour and 26 minutes
after leaving Lakehurst, she hovered over Philadelphia. Before long the
Alleghenies were reached. The men off watch eased themselves into their bunks
along the keel amidships. The keel, a triangular tunnel running along inside the
Shenandoah's bottom and tapering at bow and tail, was the heart of the ship.
Bisecting its base was a narrow catwalk, the other two sides of the triangle
being bounded by the gas cells. These bags, pressing against restraining
networks of wire and twine, were usually filled to about 85 per cent capacity at
the start of a long trip. As the ship rose, the gas expanded and the bags became
swollen; 4,000 feet was the critical "pressure height"- at that altitude the
bags would be 100 per cent full. Every five meters along the keel was a
triangular frame of latticed girders, which bound together the circular outer
ribs. Each of these frames was marked with phosphorescent numbers so the men
would always know where they were in the dark interior. The numbering started at
the base of the ship's rudders, the first girder being called Frame O, the one
farthest forward being numbered 194.75- meaning that it was 194.75 meters (about
640 feet) from the rudders. The crew space, a plywood deck twelve feet square
that served as the enlisted men's lounge and dining room, ran from Frames 100 to
105. Farther forward were the officer's quarters. The control car was suspended
on metal struts twenty feet below Frame 160.

At midnight, as the Shenandoah's five engines
propelled her westward, the sky was partially overcast. But the air was not
rough. The night was warm, and the men off duty slept without blankets. Forward
in the control car, the midnight weather observations had just been handed to
the ship's aerologist, Lieutenant Joseph B. Anderson. Anderson, a studious young
man, remained in the control car through most of the flight, and he was to
remember vividly all that happened there during the eventful hours that lay
ahead. Now he began to draw up his usual midnight weather report, and a few
minutes later, getting up from his little desk, he handed it to the skipper.
Lansdowne studied it for a few minutes, then nodded. Things weren't as bad as
they could be. He started for the ladder, "Don't call me," he said wearily,
"unless something unusual comes up." The first day, with the complications of
take-off, was always the hardest. He climbed up the ladder and was soon in his
bunk. But Lansdowne got little sleep. At 3 A.M. a storm began to brew in the
northwest, and a few minutes later he was back in the control car.

The Shenandoah was making little progress
against a strong head wind. Lansdowne ordered the man at the elevator controls
to bring the ship down to 2,000 feet, in an effort to find a hole in the wall of
wind. It was useless. For an hour and a half the slender airship struggled
westward, drifting first to port, then to starboard. At a few minutes after 5
A.M., E.P. Allen, the elevatorman, turned to Lansdowne, "Captain," he said a
slight undertone of nervousness in his voice, "the ship has started to rise."
"Check her," said Lansdowne. Allen turned the big elevator wheel clockwise to
drive the ship down. It was obvious that the Shenandoah was not responding to
the controls. Sweat covered Allen's forehead. "She's rising two meters per
second. I can't check her, sir." Lansdowne ordered engines 4 and 5 speeded up.
But despite the increased power, the ship continued to rise. "I can't hold her
down," said Allen. There was a note of panic in his voice now. He started to
pull the wheel even farther over. Lansdowne stopped him. "Don't exceed that
angle," he said in a calm, confident voice that reassured everyone in the cabin.
"We don't want to go into a stall." He ordered Rudderman Ralph Joffray to change
his course to the south. Joffray tugged his wheel counterclockwise. He had to
put his whole body into the effort. "Hard over, sir," he grunted, "and she won't
take it."

"I've got the flippers down and she won't check," said Allen,
his voice rising again. "Don't worry," said Lansdowne as if there were nothing
to fear. In spite of rudders, elevators, and motors, the ship continued to shoot
up, tail elevated about fifteen degrees, and to head relentlessly westward,
directly into the storm. The dirigible was rolling now like a raft in the sea.
The situation was more serious than the Shenandoah's crew, at least for the
moment, suspected. Down on the ground, in a little Ohio town called Caldwell, a
man awakened when the wind slammed the furniture around on his front porch. He
went outside, looked up at the sky, and spotted the giant airship. Directly
above it was a dark cloud that seemed to be in a great turmoil. It looked to
him, he later told friends, "as though two storms had gone together." And in Ava
a woman, seeing the same cloud, called her husband out into the yard. "Come out
and see the boiling cloud!" she cried. What they saw was a line squall gathering
directly above the ship. Formed by a clash of opposing winds- one moist and
warm, the other dry and cold- such a squall was capable of seizing the
Shenandoah, twisting her in different directions, and wringing out her light
metal frame. The ship's rise was carrying her right into the squall.

All
over the Shenandoah, men were on the alert. Mechanics babied their motors, which
were beginning to cough and overheat; the ship's sharp tilt was disrupting the
flow of gasoline and water through their fuel-supply and cooling systems.
Riggers scrambled down the keel ripping the covers off the automatic valves so
the already swollen gas bags wouldn't burst. In the control car the atmosphere
was quiet but tense. Allen called out, "Still rising two meters per second,
sir!" They were at 5,000 feet, far above the pressure height. Lansdowne glanced
at the altimeter and held a quick conference with his executive officer,
Lieutenant Commander Lewis Hancock. Then he turned. "All right," he said, "open
the maneuvering valves." Thousands of cubic feet of helium were valved off in
the hope that this would check the Shenandoah's swift ascent. The sky was now
solidly overcast except far to the south and southwest. Lieutenant Anderson
peered ahead, trying to determine the safest course. Then, directly north of the
ship and above, at an angle of 45 degrees, he saw the huge threatening cloud
extending above their course to the west. If their rise didn't stop soon, they
would shoot straight into the eye of the squall.

"Rising one meter per second," called Allen
hopefully. The valving off of helium was finally taking effect. Even so, they
were close to 6,000 feet and still the Shenandoah rose. "Go up in the keel,
Andy," said Lansdowne to Anderson. He realized that at any moment the rise might
stop and, with so much helium valved away, they would begin a fast plunge to
earth. "Pass the word to stand by the slip tanks in case of an emergency."
Lansdowne waited until Anderson had dashed up the ladder. Then he ordered the
valves closed. Above the control car, Anderson carried out his orders, then
started back down the ladder. Suddenly a blast of bitter-cold air rushed down
the keel through the ventilating hatches, hitting him in the face. The ship had
just risen into the squall and was now in the grip of two opposing forces, each
wrenching it in a different direction. The fantastic rise stopped sharply at
6,300 feet. The Shenandoah wavered for an instant and began to plunge.
Elevatorman Allen, standing near the altimeter, sounded the alarm. "The ship's
falling!" he cried out. "She's falling fast, very fast!" Soon no one aboard had
to be told. Eardrums pounded as the Shenandoah plummeted down 25 feet a second.
"Water ballast!" Lansdowne called out. Tons of water were dumped. The skipper
then ordered the ship nosed upward. "She's still falling!" Allen called out.
"She's all right, Allen," said Lansdowne evenly. "We'll stop her." His
self-possession once more had its calculated effect. In spite of the ship's
frightening drop, there was no panic.

In the gondolas, mechanics swore at
their erratic motors. In the keel the few men still asleep were pitched from
their bunks, while those on duty clung to girders for support. Suddenly, at
2,500 feet, the ship stopped falling and leveled off. But the men were still
tense, wondering what would happen now. Lansdowne gave an order to Rudderman
Joffray, so quietly that no one else heard. The ship headed south. Then the
captain picked up the telephone. Rigger Mark Donovan, near Frame 60, was the man
farthest aft. When the telephone glass flashed red, he grabbed the receiver and
sang out, "Sixty, Donovan." "How are the cells aft?" asked Lansdowne quietly.
"Okay aft of sixty, sir. Fully intact." There was a slight pause. "Pass the word
forward," said the skipper. "All men on their toes." He hesitated a moment, then
added quietly, "We are going through together." Donovan hung up and started
forward. As he did, there was a weird whistle of wind and the ship surged
upward, even faster than the first time. The engine telegraphs began ringing
frequently in the control car.

Engines 1 and 2 were out and the mechanic on
No. 3 reported it was heating up badly. Lansdowne ordered Allen to nose the ship
down as far as he could without stalling her. They were shooting up incredibly
fast. The rise had to be stopped. He turned and said, "Full speed!"

The
altimeter was back at 3,500 feet. Joffray was pulling at the rudder wheel,
straining away, throwing his whole body into the struggle. It was a sight
Anderson was never to forget. The ship began turning rapidly in a circle. The
tail was suddenly thrown up and wrenched to the right. The ship had been caught
by terrific opposing blasts of wind. Suddenly there was a shrill screech, as
girders began to twist and tear. Without raising his voice Commander Hancock
said, "There she goes." When Anderson heard the tear of girders he guessed that
the Shenandoah was breaking up amidships. Then the control car began to jar and
shake. Every man in the car knew what was happening. The struts that held the
big gondola to the ship were being wrenched by wind and torsion. In a matter of
moments it would tear away from the ship and drop to earth.

Earlier, when the girders had snapped, the
ship had opened at Frame 130 like an egg being cracked from the bottom. Two men
were pitched out into space. But the two sections were held together by the many
control wires that ran along the bottom of the keel. Donovan, the man farthest
aft, had moved back to Frame 30 when he heard a faraway crash of breaking
girders. Then the Shenandoah began to quiver, and Donovan smelled burning cloth.
Nauseated, he hurried forward to Frame 40, opened a hatch, and, leaning far out,
took deep, gasping breaths. Below him the ground was dim and seemed to be
spinning rapidly. Just then something snapped in the tail. A trail of sparks
shot up under the keel. The main cable controls had broken loose from the
elevators and rudders and were running wildly up the length of the ship. Far
forward Lieutenant Commander Charles E. Rosendahl, the ship's navigator, who had
been ordered by Lansdowne to supervise the dropping of ballast, was working his
way along the keel. He heard a fearful clashing and turned in time to see the
bottom panel of the ship's outer covering and several of the transverse
structural members of the keel cut loose along one side. He saw severed control
wires being pulled out like guts of a fish as the control car fell. The man who
had the last look at the doomed gondola and its occupants was Anderson, who had
scrambled up to the catwalk just as the gondola was wrenching itself
loose.

He looked over his left shoulder and saw it hanging down. Suddenly
the ladder he was holding on to was yanked away, and the car began its plunge to
earth, carrying Lansdowne and seven others to their deaths. Stunned, Anderson
felt the catwalk and the girders on both sides of it collapsing like a house of
matches. He was pulled off the catwalk, but just as he was about to drop through
the great hole torn open by the control car, he managed to get hold of
something. The next thing he knew he was setting on a fragment of the catwalk
suspended directly over the center of the jagged hole. A few wires were all that
held him and the fragment of catwalk to the rest of the ship. He dared not make
a move for fear he might topple off. The four men in the crew space amidships
looked forward and saw nothing but empty space; the bow section had broken off
and was ballooning high above them. Almost at once there came a new tearing and
ripping aft of them, followed by a sickening downward lurch as the ship broke
again, this time just forward of engines 2 and 3, at Frame 100. The Shenandoah
was now in three parts.

In the center section, smallest of the three, the
gas bags had collapsed, and, weighted by engine gondolas 4 and 5, it dropped
"like an elevator with no brakes." To the four sailors in its tiny crew space it
seemed that they must surely follow the control car down to earth. But weakened
girders snapped again, the two engine cabs wrenched free, and the little helium
remaining slowed their fall. Jagged wreckage dangling at both ends, the center
section smashed into the side of a little hill, skidded down a slope, crashed
into some trees, and stopped. The four men in the crew space were injured but
alive; four mechanics- three of them in the engine cabs- were killed. The 350-
foot stern section, meanwhile, was gliding toward the rolling hills at high
speed, dragged down by the weight of engine gondolas 1, 2, and 3. With eighteen
men aboard, it was headed for the ground, tail first, falling like an arrow and
almost as fast. It struck glancingly against a wooded hillside, and again the
unlikely happened: the three engines were scraped off by the treetops, and the
tail section bounded free. It drifted into a small valley, snagged its port side
against a tree, and tilted precariously.

Men tumbled out like spilled oranges. Finally,
as it hit the ground, it began to pivot in a huge arc, threatening to crush
those who had jumped on the downhill side. One escaped by running uphill. A
second ran the other way. A third had gotten a dangling wire twisted around one
ankle; after being dragged for fifty yards like a roped steer, he managed to get
the wire loose and scrambled up the hill. He ducked just in time to avoid the
downward sweep of the great tail fins. Slowly, dazedly, the men began to
collect. All eighteen of them had survived. Only the bow section remained aloft.
Anderson was still sitting on his fragile suspension bridge of two wires. The
bow- now a free balloon- was spinning on a horizontal plane. Anderson felt
seasick. There was no sound but the high wind and the creaking of wreckage. The
shattered bow section was rising higher and higher. Soon the gas cells would
burst. Anderson believed he was alone. But he was wrong. There were six others
aboard. One, Navigator Rosendahl, took charge. They found a helium valve, opened
it, and stopped the wild ascent. Then Lieutenant Roland G. Mayer lowered a rope
to Anderson. Since he couldn't let go of the wires he was sitting on, the line
was looped around Anderson and he was pulled to safety.

With Anderson
safe, Rosendahl surveyed the situation. Others aboard the floating bow section
shouted their reports: having found the helium valve control wire and one bag
containing 1,600 pounds of water ballast, they decided to try for a landing.
Moments later, down on the ground, a telephone began ringing in the farmhouse of
Ernest Nichols. Nichols picked up the receiver. It was a neighbor telling him a
crazy story about a runaway airship heading straight for his house. Nichols hung
up and went out in the yard. A big object, like a low cloud, was coming over his
orchard. It was the Shenandoah's bow. From above he heard men shouting, "Grab
Hold!" Wires were dangling from the nose. Nichols grabbed one of them and
wrapped it around a fence post. The post snapped. The floating wreckage turned
slightly from its course, knocked off the top of a shed, bowled over a grape
arbor, skimmed over the ground, and settled down gently, open end first.
Anderson and another officer jumped out and made the lines fast to posts and
trees. Once on the ground Rosendahl called for pistols to puncture the helium
cells and prevent the wreckage from rising again into the air. Rosendahl looked
at his watch.

It was 6:45 A.M. All of the Shenandoah was now
on the ground. All told, fourteen men had died. The fragments of the
Shenandoah and its 29 survivors were scattered across twelve miles of
landscape.

First came the rescuers. They did everything they could to
make its easier for the dazed survivors. But soon, over the rutted back roads,
in buggies, buckboards, and broken-down Model -T Fords, came the curious. Many
were full of pity; others treated the disaster like a picnic. By noon thousands
of looters and souvenir hunters had torn almost all the covering off both the
larger sections of the ship. Women came away from the wreckage staggering under
yards of fabric they had ripped from the frame. The looters were armed with
knives, hatchets, pliers, and even wrenches. They went away with the ship's
logbooks, with fragments of girders up to eight feet long, with blankets and
valuable instruments. The still-dazed officers and enlisted men tried to keep
guard. When Major Frank Kennedy, an army airship expert from nearby McCook
Field, arrived to help he found Frank Masters, one of the Shenandoah's young
riggers, trying desperately to guard the control car. Masters was nervous and
confused. As he rushed from one point to another, a group of looters would dart
in behind his back. He had had nothing to eat for many hours. Sympathetic
farmers offered to take him to breakfast, but he refused to leave his
post.

Soon the two main sections of the ship, miles
apart, looked like skeletons picked to the bone.
At nightfall, in spite of
armed national guardsman who threatened to open fire, the looting continued. By
morning the control car too had been picked clean. Many instruments had been
stolen, all the toggles ripped out, everything movable torn free. Only the naked
hull of the gondola was left, and even that had been moved twenty yards from the
place where it had struck. The Annapolis class ring was missing from Zachary
Lansdowne's finger. It had taken the "Daughter of the Stars" three hours to die
piecemeal, and all day to be stripped bare. But her story was far from over.
Even before the survivors' train reached Lakehurst it became evident that the
disaster was to be a cause celebre. In bold headlines Mrs. Lansdowne was quoted
as accusing Secretary of the Navy Curtis D. Wilbur of forcing her husband to
take the flight for political purposes.

On September 4, a second
sensational charge came from Captain Anton Heinan, a German airship exert who
had taught many of the Shenandoah's men to fly. "I tell you it was murder to
take that ship out," he said to a reporter from the Philadelphia Evening
Bulletin. The original eighteen-helium safety valves, had explained, and had
been reduced to eight. The ship had broken in two because the expanding gas,
with insufficient outlets for escape, had crushed the frame. The victims, he
declared, "gave their lives to save precious helium.

On September 21 at Lakehurst, a Navy Court
of Inquiry opened hearings to investigate the Shenandoah crash. The inquiry
almost turned into a brawl when Captain Heinen was called upon to explain his
inflammatory remarks. The following week the proceedings were transferred to
Washington, and there, on October 9, Mrs. Lansdowne made her first appearance,
dressed in deep mourning. Most Navy people thought the attractive 23-year-old
widow would repudiate the statements attributed to her by the newspapers.
Instead, she bluntly repeated them.

On the evening of November 7 the judge
advocate (in a naval court, the prosecutor) paid a surprise visit to Mrs.
Lansdowne at the Washington home of her uncle, where she was staying for the
duration of the hearings. He said the Navy would like her to appear again. The
next day the wife of the Lakehurst commandant invited Mrs. Lansdowne to lunch at
the Mayflower. As they were leaving the hotel, the older woman slipped a piece
of paper in her hand, saying it was something, which the judge advocate thought
she could use in court. It was a draft of a statement declaring that Mrs.
Lansdowne had changed her mind; that her husband had regarded the Shenandoah as
a man-of-war and that he had been ready to use it ant any time regardless of the
weather. Furious, she tore it up.

Three days later, on November 11, Mrs.
Lansdowne appeared once more at the Navy hearings. She and her counsel, Joseph
E. Davies, walked into the hostile courtroom. The usual tensions of such a
hearing had been heightened by the fact that at the same time, in another part
or the capitol, the Army's court-martial of Colonel William ("Billy") Mitchell
was in progress. (At Mitchell's request Mrs. Lansdowne appeared at his trials
and told the court about what she regarded as the Navy's attempt to influence
her testimony.) The glare of publicity from the two trials had put the services
on the defensive, and at the Shenandoah hearing the navy wives who made up the
majority of the courtroom audience were on the navy's side.

Davies (later United States ambassador to
Russia just before World War II) insisted that he be allowed to advise his
client. The original judge advocate had resigned in order to appear as a witness
at the Mitchell trial and answer Mrs. Lansdowne's charges. A successor, Major
Henry Leonard of the Marine Corps, had been appointed, and at this juncture he
rose to object. This was not a civilian court, he declared, and Mrs. Lansdowne
was merely a witness.

Davies told his client not to testify without his
advice. The presiding officer, an elderly admiral, warned Davies to be quiet.
Davies insisted on his client's rights. The admiral, loosing his patients,
ordered him to be quiet or leave. When Davies did neither, the admiral
reluctantly turned to the marine guard and said. "You will remove the gentleman
from the court." "My client is entitled to counsel!" shouted Davies, but the
marine grabbed him by the collar him by the collar and escorted him, still
protesting, from the courtroom. For three hours Mrs. Lansdowne was questioned.
Every time Major Leonard scored a point there would be a burst of applause from
the Navy wives. Whenever Mrs. Lansdowne scored, the incensed women would boo and
hiss.

Leonard pointed out that there had been a
"prudential" clause in Commander Lansdowne's order that would have allowed him
to postpone the flight if he had thought conditions warranted it. But Mrs.
Lansdowne, who was managing very well without a lawyer, seized upon the
conclusion of the clause, which read, "…remembering, however, that this route
will be published in the press and that many will be disappointed should the
Shenandoah fail to follow the approved schedule. "That, " she said, "is the
pressure that is brought on officers in the Navy Department." Mrs. Lansdowne was
excused. The court never recalled her. The inquiry ended two weeks later. Most
experts agreed that the Shenandoah's gas cells had not ruptured, but that the
ship had been torn apart by an unfortunate series of natural
forces.

Commander Lansdowne and the others who had died with the ship had
not made a useless sacrifice. Even in death the Shenandoah had helped aviation
take a long step forward. It is true that the United States government gave up
on the rigid dirigible after the crash of the American-built Akron in the
Atlantic off Barnegat Light in April of 1933 and that of the Macon, her sister
ship, in the Pacific off Point Sur, California, two years later. And when the
Hindenburg, Germany's great commercial airship, burned horribly at Lakehurst in
1937, the day of the great ''rigids" seemed to be over. But United States
experience with the Shenandoah and other dirigibles contributed significantly to
our success with the smaller, nonrigid blimp. Ridiculed as the "rubber cow" and
the "poopy-bag," the blimp nevertheless played an important role in World War
II- blimps helped drive enemy submarines from the Strait of Gibraltor, patrolled
the United States coast line for lurking U-boats, and helped clear mines from
the waters south of France in preparation for D-Day. Today blimps are an
important component of our early-warning defense net and of our antisubmarine
forces.

The men who flew the graceful rigids and lived
to remember, however, are still loyal to them. Commander Rosenthal, now a
retired admiral, still argues strenuously that they deserve another trial. As
recently as 1954, he and Paul Litchfield, chairman of the board of the Goodyear
Tire and Rubber Company, which built the Akron and the Macon, were fighting for
rigid dirigibles both for commercial and naval uses and as flying laboratories
for testing an atomic aircraft engine. In Germany, the last commander of the
Hindenburg, Captain Max Pruss, and other airship advocates are proposing new
passenger and cargo dirigibles, using helium in place of hydrogen, to provide an
intermediate service between the slower surface liners and the faster
airplane.

Yet memories of such epic disasters as that of the Shenandoah
are not easily forgotten. The romantic dirigible, outmoded almost in its infancy
by the fantastic onrush of aerial invention, was even in its own time a craft
dogged by ill
luck.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John
Toland, a free-lance writer who lives in Red Bank, New Jersey, is the author of
Ships in the Sky: The Story of the Great Dirigibles.

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