The airship Hindenburg at NAS Lakehurst after a previous transatlantic flight
The Hindenburg Disaster on the Radio
The airship Hindenburg at NAS Lakehurst after a previous transatlantic flight
At 7:35 pm, on the evening of May 6, 1937, the airship LZ-129 Hindenburg carrying 61 crew and 36 passengers was just approaching the mooring mast at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey -- hours behind schedule. Inclement weather forced this delay. Buffeted by winds and rain, the craft hovered in the area by most accounts for about an hour. The presence of lightning storms were recorded. The landing of the Hindenburg with these types of conditions was against regulations. However, by the time the Hindenburg began its landing, the weather was clearing up. The Hindenburg seems to have been traveling at a fairly fast speed for its landing and for some reason, the Captain attempted a high landing, being winched to the ground from a height of about 200 feet. Soon after the mooring lines were set, some eyewitnesses reported a blue glow on top of the Hindenburg followed by a flame towards the tail section of the craft. The flame was almost simultaneously succeeded by an explosion that quickly engulfed the craft causing it to crash into the ground killing 36 people. Spectators watched in horror as passengers and crew were burned alive or jumped to their deaths....
Some of radio's greatest moments are when the actual event occurs live on the air or while a reporter is recording and the unexpected happens. One such event happened to reporter Herb Morrison on May 6th, 1937 in Lakehurst, New Jersey. The mighty German Zeppelin, Hindenburg, was attempting a mooring. The Hindenburg was one of Nazi Germany's finest airships. It was supposed to represent the greatness of the German Reich and its leader, Adolph Hitler.The airship had made this voyage before and friends and family were at Lakehurst waiting for the arrival of the great zeppelin. Reporter Morrison was there too thanks to his radio station. The day was rainy and there had been strong thunderstorms earlier. Morrison was recording the event for later rebroadcast. The early part of his recording reflects information about the airship and the day and what is necessary to bring it into mooring.
Herb Morrison
As the zeppelin arrives, Morrison is describing the mooring when suddenly it bursts into flames. Morrison is shocked, but keeps talking though breaking occasionally overcome by the tragedy. Later the broadcast continues after the tragedy as the victims are being brought in and survivors are interviewed.It was radio news at its finest; news events reported as they happened. The description is brought home to radio's listeners and we in turn grieve for the dead and injured. This event reflected what was to come with radio broadcasting immediately before and during World War II as the Murrow Boys and others would bring the war home to America via the airways.
(click on mic for a streaming audio of the entire broadcast)
While the event was not aired live, it did air later. In those days radio reporting of events was always broadcast live only since the networks had policies forbidding the use of recorded material except for sound effects. But Herbert Morrison, the reporter, was not there to report disaster and had no facility for broadcasting live. Instead, he was there at the behest of his radio station, WLS, Chicago, to record a report on the grand airship. Later that day, Morrison and his sound engineer, Charlie Nehlsen left New Jersey with the transcription discs and headed back to Chicago. The morning after the disaster is when parts of the recording first aired over WLS. Logs of when it first appeared over NBC are not known to exist. It is known that at least five minutes of the recording did broadcast on May 7th at 11:38 AM in the New York area and over the Red Network. It was later in the day that the longer sections were played to a national audience. This was one of the few times that the networks allowed a recording of an event to be broadcast.
-- A sequence of photographs showing the death of the Hindenburg --I have compiled this series of compelling images from numerous sources to create a visual timeline of the Hindenburg's final moments as described in the radio broadcast by Herb Morrison above. I realize that these images may offend some readers, but this is how it was -- this is history. Remember that the newsreels of the day showed these same images in hundreds of movie theatres around the world.
The time elapsed in this sequence was a mere 34 seconds (approx. 7:35:06 pm - 7:35:40 pm)...
Colorized image of the tragedy (based on eyewitness accounts)
The mystery surrounding the disaster of the Hindenburg dogged investigators for decades. Finally, after many years of research, Addison Bain, a NASA scientist at Cape Canaveral, has found proof that neither the hydrogen in the hull nor a bomb was to blame, but the fabric of the Hindenburg's outer skin and a new protective coating. A single spark of static electricity was enough to make it burn like dry leaves. The "infallible" German engineers had designed a flying bomb just waiting to explode.Modern computer-colorized images of the fire were created, based on eyewitness accounts, to demonstrate that it was not the hydrogen which caused the ship to burn so quickly, but the aluminumzed dope used to cover the outer fabric. This information was known to the Germans at the time of the disaster, but was kept secret for fear of compromising the mystique of the Third Reich .
For more information visit: http://www.hydrogenus.com/advocate/ad22zepp.htm
2003 Wings Publishing
