National Geographic: Hindenburg Page #2

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leaving a third of its crew dead,

and its remains scattered across

the Ohio countryside.

In 1932, during a routine

landing of the USS Akron,

three members of her ground crew

were dragged into the air

when the Akron suddenly

lurched upward.

The helpless sailors clung to the line

in desperation until first one,

and then another tumbled hundreds of

feet to their deaths.

The third managed to hang on

for more than an hour

before he was finally hauled on board.

Less than a year later,

the Akron crashed off the New Jersey

coast, killing 73 of her 76 crewmen.

The last big airship that

the U.S. Navy had was the Macon.

It was lost February 12, 1935

in squally weather off

Point Sur, California.

There were 83 on board and,

in this particular accident,

only 2 people were lost in it.

And there it lay, its exact location

unknown for over 50 years.

Finally, in the early 1990s,

an expedition covered by

National Geographic Magazine

found and photographed

the remains of the Macon.

A Navy submersible located the Macon

in nearly 1,500 feet of water.

Her tangled skeleton still harbored

the remains of her fighter planes.

It was a sad reminder

of the Navy's brief,

disastrous flirtation

with rigid airships.

Elsewhere, airships would meet with

greater success.

In Germany, the civilian airship

industry was reborn after the war,

under the leadership of Hugo Eckener,

a charismatic successor to

the late Count von Zeppelin.

Eckener had the experience,

the personality,

and the entrepreneurial spirit

to realize Zeppelin's vision of

a fleet of passenger liners.

He gathered together the best and

brightest engineers and designers

to build the greatest airship yet,

which he named after his mentor.

When the Graf Zeppelin was launched

in 1928,

she was hailed as the most advanced

airship ever.

But Eckener was eager

to build on this success.

So he came up with

an unprecedented scheme:

to fly his creation around the world.

If he could pull it off,

it would be a technological triumph-

and a publicity bonanza.

This is very much like the

Lindbergh flight if you will.

It's one of the big events that people

had been waiting for to happen.

Newspaper publisher

William Randolph Hearst

saw the potential and paid

the Zeppelin Company $100,000

for the rights to cover the flight.

And look at the size of

the Graf Zeppelin,

which looks big even with

Atlantic Ocean under it.

This is first leg of long

globe-circling glide of giant ship,

destined to set a record for

round the world travel.

In August, 1929, with the eyes of the

world focused on the Graf Zeppelin,

Eckener piloted the airship

across continents and oceans,

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