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CHAPTER ONE
Naval Air Station, Lakehurst, New Jersey
May 6, 1937

The Lakehurst Naval Air Station was in disarray. After a frustrating day in the midst of thunderclaps, sporadic lightning, and intermittent rain, the hundreds of people gathered on the landing field to greet family members and friends arriving from Germany on the Hindenburg were miserable. They were tired and hungry, drenched by rainstorms, weary of the periodic announcements of additional delays, and anxious to welcome arriving passengers. Equally irritated were the departing passengers. They hoped to return to Germany in comfort and luxury aboard the Hindenburg.

Some were headed for celebrations of the Coronation of George VI in London in less than six days. Their schedules were tight, and they were anxious to arrive in Frankfurt in time to make train and ferry connections to England. They, along with many of the persons meeting incoming passengers, had been on the field since dawn, more than twelve hours earlier. Their impatience and their exhaustion were building a sizable hostility to all in authority in the German zeppelin operations and their Navy hosts.

Nearly two hundred civilian men and boys, who responded to the klaxon call for ground crew volunteers from the nearby town of Lakehurst, had stood around the field for hours. Some, tired of waiting, had given up and gone home. Those remaining, and the sailors on duty, had been herded into two large groups. They were now patiently waiting to handle the restraining lines when they were dropped from the zeppelin. This duty was standard for sailors who were assigned to the air station and who were required to assist with landings and takeoffs. The civilians were accustomed to volunteering for work as line handlers for the sum of one dollar per hour—nice pay in those post-depression days of low wages and few jobs.

Now the magnificent silver airship glided smoothly into view. The sky had cleared and the rain had, for the moment, ceased to fall. Hopes soared for an end to a seemingly endless day of waiting and wondering. One of those in the expectantly waiting throng was Herb Morrison, a radio announcer from Chicago, recording his descriptions of the event for later broadcast to listeners back home. He was describing the scene in graphic word pictures so that his radio listeners would be able to see in their minds’ eyes exactly what he was seeing:

“Here it comes, ladies and gentlemen, and what a sight it is, a thrilling one, a marvelous sight. It is coming down out of the sky pointed toward us, and toward the mooring mast. The mighty diesel motors roar, the propellers biting into the air. No one wonders that this great floating palace can travel through the air at such a speed with these powerful motors behind it.”

The forward handling lines released clouds of dust as they dropped in heavy coils from the airship’s bow. The line-handling parties quickly picked them up and connected them to the mooring lines laid out on the ground. An air of excitement lifted the spirits of those who had waited for so long. The Hindenburg was finally here. Commander Charles Rosendahl, U.S. Navy, the Air Station’s commanding officer, descended from the control tower and hurried to the landing area so he could be on hand to greet the Hindenburg’s Captain Pruss and welcome him at the completion of the year’s first passage to America.

Passengers peered down from the Hindenburg’s windows, looking for friends and family members in the huge crowd on the landing field. They waved enthusiastically to the welcoming spectators. A sudden quiet fell over the field as Pruss ordered the engines stopped, and the giant airship drifted silently ahead.

Herbert Morrison, from his vantage point on the ground, continued his description of the scene:

“. . .It’s practically standing still now. They’ve dropped ropes out of the nose of the ship, and it’s been taken a hold of down on the field by a number of men. It’s starting to rain again; the rain had slacked up a little bit. The back motors of the ship are holding it, just enough to keep it from. . .”

He stopped in midsentence. He sensed that something was wrong. A few of the waiting spectators later reported seeing a brief crackle of blue sparks near the tail—a phenomenon, they later learned, called Saint Elmo’s Fire, which sometimes appears near aircraft in stormy weather.

Suddenly, without warning, a tiny yellow flame flickered near the top of the zeppelin, just forward of the upper tailfin. The small blaze immediately expanded into a huge blowtorch-like spout of orange fire as the clear-burning hydrogen gas ignited other materials, and the devastating flames spread quickly along the airship’s silvered outer covering of canvas panels, coated with combustible paint containing aluminum particles to reflect the sun’s heat. With a gushing roar, the intense blaze set afire the zeppelin’s interior structure, and its contents were instantly absorbed in a giant conflagration. Some spectators on the ground remembered seeing a brilliant ball of red, orange, and yellow fire as the aluminum frame members, cargo, furnishings, and diesel fuel merged into the fierce hydrogen inferno. In seconds, the afterpart of the Hindenburg lost its buoyancy as it was swiftly absorbed in a concentrated, devastating firestorm.

The airship crumpled to the ground, tail first, as the flames spread forward. Morrison rose and shouted incoherently into his microphone:

“It burst into flames! It’s fire and it’s crashing! It’s crashing terrible! Oh, my! Get out of the way, please! It’s burning, bursting into flames and falling on the mooring mast, and all the folks agree that this is terrible. This is the worst of the worst catastrophes in the world!. . .There’s smoke, and there’s flames, now, and the frame is crashing to the ground, not quite to the mooring mast. . .Oh, the humanity, and all the passengers screaming around here!

The crowd below had been too startled to utter a sound, but now piercing screams and hoarse shouts created a dreadful cacophony. Spectators ran frantically in all directions. At first the passengers aboard the zeppelin didn’t understand why members of the welcoming crowd below them were scattering and running away.

Then they saw the bright glow of the fire reflected from the windows of nearby buildings. In the gathering darkness of a cloudy early evening, the area was illuminated as if by a midday sun. Now they began to comprehend—their airship was on fire! Panic ensued as they stampeded away from the windows, stumbling and falling in their haste. There was nowhere to go.

As the tail of the Hindenburg sank toward the ground and the nose, as yet untouched by fire, maintained its elevation, passengers slid against the after bulkheads of the passenger compartments in a jumbled, confused mass. Time appeared to stretch and extend. Everybody’s excited minds moved so much faster that events were spaced out in a moment in time that seemed to creep slowly onward.

Some passengers recovered their balance and began to force open the windows. Their initial reaction was to drop free from the burning airship as it approached the ground. The more daring lowered themselves through the open window frames, holding on for dear life. But soon their clutching fingers weakened, and they could hold on no longer. They slowly. . .agonizingly. . .painfully. . . unwillingly. . .lost their handholds and fell. The first few fell from a height too great for them to survive. Their crumpled and unconscious bodies were soon enveloped and cremated by the crumpling zeppelin and its white-hot remains.

Others, not seeing the bodies slam to the ground, followed them out the windows. By now the passenger cabin was closer to the ground, but they were still so high that those who fell were not killed by the fall, but suffered badly broken bones. Some were injured so badly that they were unable to escape the flames; they perished in the inferno as the Hindenburg’s fiery carcass descended on their stricken bodies.

At last, passengers began to reach the ground safely, some jumping from the windows and some making their way down the extended boarding stairways that reached closer to the ground. A few limped or crawled away with broken and sprained ankles, broken legs, or injured knees from violent falls. Some, with hair and clothes on fire, were badly burned already, but a surprising number were able to make their way clear of the burning debris and reach the crowd waiting on the outskirts of the field, away from the heat and flames.

Eager hands reached out to help those in need. The ground-crew members, rallied by their leaders, helped others to escape the danger zone and reach safety. Shortly, a collection of hastily assembled ambulances and fire department vehicles reached the scene and started caring for the injured and disabled.

Lieutenant Charles Heinz, U.S. Navy, a passenger aboard the Hindenburg, was not surprised by what was happening. He had learned of two plots to destroy the Nazi zeppelin, so he expected that some harm might come to it, but not while anyone was on board. Because of his anxiety about making a rapid, safe departure, Heinz had warned two passengers—who assisted him after he was wounded by an SS colonel in a brutal surprise attack during the flight—to be poised and ready to leave the airship immediately after landing. As they ran away from the burning Hindenburg, Heinz led the two frightened Germans through the crowd to a safe location.

Heinz was troubled as he ran for his life. Had he contributed to the Hindenburg’s destruction? How much could he tell. . .should he tell. . .about his knowledge of things that happened before the crash? He was sure of only one thing: No one—especially his Navy superiors—must ever know of his involvement in the destruction of the Hindenburg.