Captain Eckener was not only attentive to Billy, but also nice to Dick and me and, even though he looked very old and had bags under his eyes, I liked him a great deal until the day the Captain invited us into the control room, a place with slanting windows with a wonderful view downward.

"Would you like to steer?" he asked Dick. Dick eagerly put his hands on the rudder wheel and stood very straight, squinting ahead.

"Now it's my turn," I said.

Captain Eckener turned to me and said, "No, a girl can't steer a ship."

I was crushed. I was furious. He was nice and he was kind, but I didn't think he was fair. How I longed to hold that wheel! But I never did. Even though I thought he was old and not very beautiful, as Captain of the ship he could have been my temporary hero, but he lost that chance. I had to have a hero, and so turned my attentions to the handsome accordion-playing First Mate, Ernst I-ehmann, and forthwith developed a crush on him. He became my first love, and I admired him from afar. Later I was to transfer this admiration to movie actors like Tyrone Power and Errol Flynn. I might not have thought so much of the First Mate if he had a smelly pipe in his mouth as some pictures show him.

No one on board was allowed to smoke because of the flammable hydrogen gas which kept us afloat. The smokers chewed gum instead. For entertainment the adult passengers played cards and bridge. Dick and I played checkers and read when we weren't looking out the window.

After our first day and night of travel we arrived at Recife, capital of the state of Pernambuco, at 5:30 a.m. It had rained earlier and, as we descended, we saw a completely circular rainbow in the sky. Our family was the last to leave the ship, but by 7 a.m. we too were ashore, and were driven to the Central Hotel.

We toured the city, spent some time at the beach, and by nighttime returned to the Graf Zeppelin.

Bands played and a big crowd saw us off that night. As we rose from the field, the band music became fainter as we cruised northward, leaving the twinkling lights of Recife behind.

During the night we passed aver the city of Natal, capital of the state of Rio Grande do Norte, on the coast of Brazil nearest Africa. We dropped a lighted wreath of flowers attached to a parachute in memory of Augusto Severo, a famous Brazilian balloonist whose airship Pax, built in France to his own design, exploded and burned at 1500 feet in a Paris flight in 1902. Both Severo and his French mechanic Sachs, died in the accident. Later we were told that the parachute had blown away and did not land where everyone was waiting for it, ready to receive the gift with music and ceremonial speeches.

Before leaving Brazil, Captain Eckener flew westward and inland to give us a good look at the Amazon. We went so low and slowly that we frightened flocks of egrets which flew up from their jungle perches in clouds of white feathers. Alligators basked in the sun on river banks as we passed the long, wide Amazon River. The rest of the jungle was an uninteresting solid green sea of tree tops.

That afternoon my mother, father, Dick, and I were invited to see the inside of the hull of the ship, and where the crew slept. We climbed a ladder into their quarters and looked around. We were inside the silver cigar!

Above us were wires and girders and big bags of hydrogen gas. Below were canvas water containers and fuel tanks. It was very quiet, like being in a huge warehouse. We walked along a spindly metal catwalk that went from one end of the ship to the other. A flap of skin over one of the motors was open, and I can still remember the strange feeling in my stomach as I held tightly to the hand rails and looked straight down at the tree tops below.  A member of the crew, off duty, took his accordion to the nose of the ship and played for us there.  It was exciting, but I didn't feel very secure until I got back to the solid-feeling gondola.

When we passed over Cayenne, French Guiana, a blazing brush fire with black clouds of smoke and licking tongues of flame had taken over the countryside.  Next, Devil's Island, where the French sent their political prisoners, was pointed out to us.

On Sunday, over Trinidad, people in yachts and sailboats waved to us, and looking down, we could see fish and sharks swimming in the clear water below. A small plane appeared from nowhere and flew circles around us. Mist hung over the Windward Islands of Grenada and St. Vincent and a dark cloud bank lay ahead. The Captain changed course toward Puerto Rico, leaving the little islands of the Lesser Antilles for another trip. Always on watch for storms ahead, he avoided them by changing course.

Monday morning, October 23, the day of our Miami arrival, Billy was dressed in a pink silk romper suit and white wide­brimmed hat. Captain Eckener dressed up in a white shirt, suit and black bow tie instead of his usual daytime khakis.

Escorted by a single plane, we circled the city and headed for the Opa-Locka Naval Air Base. At 8 a.m. we nosed down to the stubby mooring mast and were pulled in place by ropes. The ground crew rushed in and grabbed the railings at the bottom of the gondola to which they fastened heavy sand bags to hold us down.

Thousands of people had come to watch us land; the roads around the airfield were filled with parked cars. They were not allowed closer than half a mile from the mooring mast, and the people who were allowed on the field, we heard later, were first searched by the police.

The problem was the black Nazi Swastika in a white circle with red background painted on the port side of our huge tail fin and rudder. Adolf Hitler, who had come into power in Germany in January, had ordered the swastika put on the Graf Zeppelin against Captain Eckener's protests. The Captain had never supported the Nazi regime and spoke out his disapproval of it. The starboard fin and rudder were decorated with horizontal black, white and red stripes, the German colors, and the swastika was only visible from one side.

The swastika was photographed and commented on in the Miami newspapers, but strict orders had been issued by David Sholtz, Governor of Florida, to prevent any demonstrations of ill-feeling against Germany. The governor had been informed of possible anti-German demonstrations and sent this telegram to Dade County Sheriff Coleman:

AM DEPENDING UPON YOU TO TAKE ADEQUATE PRECAUTIONARY MEASURES TO PROTECT THE GRAF ZEPPELIN AND CREW DURING THEIR VISIT TO YOUR CITY 

The sheriff put his whole staff of deputies under the command of officials superintending our arrival and deputized 25 additional men to serve during our visit. The passengers were invited for a drive to Coral Gables and Miami Beach over the causeway, and for lunch at McAllister Hotel. The Graf Zeppelin would pick up more mail to add to the letters we carried from Germany, Argentina, and Brazil, which used a "Graf Zeppelin Century of Progress" stamp issued for the occasion.

MIAMI TO AKRON

We were scheduled to take off from Miami at 7 p.m. that Monday night, but were delayed for two hours because of a heavy rainstorm. The base had no hangar, and our ship collected five tons of rainwater on its surface and we could only rise after water ballast was dumped.

From Miami we headed north toward Akron where we were due 24 hours later, Thursday evening, October 24.

After the rain in Miami, Captain Eckener had another problem to face. He had planned to follow the Atlantic seaboard north, but abandoned this route in the face of low ceilings and rainy weather. Instead, he chose a course which curved inland over Georgia, Alabama, the Cumberland, Tennessee foothills and the marshes and hills of Kentucky, zigzagging to avoid local storms and keeping in touch by radio with the ground and Coast Guard.

Due to land in Akron shortly after passing over Columbus, we were to be disappointed. Instead of landing, we spent twelve chilly hours hovering over  Akron in the dark. It was five degrees above zero outside, windy, and quite cold inside as well because the Zeppelin was not heated. We didn't go to bed. Billy was cold in his cot and couldn't sleep so my father made a cozy bed with two chairs for him in the dining room. Dick and I, wrapped in blankets, also slept there in chairs.  

It was even colder on the ground, where 25,000 spectators had crowded the municipal airport to see us land. Instead, they thrilled to the behavior of a dirigible in a storm. Even before the Graf Zeppelin appeared, the ground crew of 200 men, who wore white identification arm bands with "Graf Zeppelin 33", were ready. On the field, khaki clad National Guardsmen patrolled the fences, and National Guard Cavalry held back the crowd who were stamping their feet in the cold. A chill wind brought rain which swept around them. The rain turned to sleet, cutting across the upturned faces of handlers and anxious airship experts peering into the sky from the airdock apron.

The Graf Zeppelin came out of the dark skies and headed downwind toward the airport, motors turning, while hundreds of car headlights reflected on the wet  field. Automobile horns sent up a racket and the mass of spectators cheered. The airport searchlight swept the ship, which sent an answering beam of light downward as it headed toward the hangar.

Then the wind squalls strengthened and the "Graf", shining silver in the airport floodlights, nosed upward again and circled the airport. The ship's spotlight was turned off and only an occasional searchlight from the field swept the Graf  Zeppelin as it floated above, motors turning.

At the field, the comfortably warm press room, wireless, and weather station of the airdock were crowded with worried officials and Goodyear-Zeppelin representatives. Eight years before, the U.S. Navy-built dirigible Shenandoah came to a tragic end when it broke in half in the air in a storm over Ava, Ohio, 100 miles south of Akron, at this same time of year. In April, 1933 only six months previously, Akron had crashed into the sea causing 73 deaths.

Tonight the wind, howling in from the northeast, cut across Akron's landing field and whistled in the high steel rafters inside the huge hangar. The 170 ton movable mooring mast, to which the ship was to be fastened, had not been moved out of the hangar for fear it would be interpreted as a signal to land, and so the chilled welcoming crowd outside dwindled away.

At the weather bureau station, E. Willy von Meister, Luftschifffbau-Zeppelin's American representative, frowned at the dial of the wind recording instrument, which showed 18 m.p.h., then increasing to 30, 40, and 60 m.p.h.

At 7:30 p.m. the radio operator in contact with the Graf Zep asked, "When are you going to land?" "I will remain aloft and cruise around until the wind moderates to 15 miles per hour," our Captain answered. At 11:10 p.m. Eckener advised, "Circling over Akron since 4 hours. Landing tomorrow."

Officials in the administration building waited out the night eating pork sandwiches and drinking hot coffee. Waiting for the "Graf " to land was made more difficult by strict obedience to "no smoking" signs, Goodyear's precaution against any possibility of igniting the highly explosive hydrogen gas which filled the Graf Zeppelin's gas cells as well as the gaseous mixture ("Blaugas") with which the dirigible was to refuel. Although nonflammable helium was used in American airships, the U.S. withheld sale of this gas from Germany because of  restrictions in the 1927 Helium Control Act.

Because of the aggressiveness of Germany's new government, as well as the high feelings against the added swastika which represented it, utmost precautions were taken to prevent any demonstrations of violence at the Miami, Akron, and Chicago landings. There had been rumors that the Graf Zeppelin would be blown up in Chicago. It was said that the swastika was an ancient symbol which Hitler thought was a Nordic cross. Since he said of the Nazi party, "Wir sind auch eine Kiche" (We are also a Church), he was ridiculing the Christian Cross.

Among those waiting out the night in the Akron airdock was a friend of Captain Eckener's, Antonie Strassman, a German aviatrix. "I hope there will be no trouble about the ship displaying Adolf Hitler's famous emblem," she told newsmen, laughing, "It's on the Graf Zeppelin only because German law demands it." 

At 3 a.m. the sleepy airdock landing crews were alerted, shivering as the season's first snow blew across the field. After circling three times, the Graf sailed in, airport floodlights picking up rainbow hues in the light frosting of snow covering the giant airship.

Captain Eckener leaned out from the darkened gondola window as he gently nosed the ship downward, guiding it towards the mooring mast, motors roaring smoothly.  Guide ropes were thrown out and seized by anxious hands which pulled the ship down. Ground crews braved the cold and worked to complete the job of fastening the ship to the mast. Then began the task of hauling the ship into the hangar. The motors of the mooring mast chugged away, pulling the Graf Zeppelin across the field in a flurry of white snowflakes which shone in the floodlights.

Finally our ship was inside the hangar and tied down to iron rings bolted to the cement floor.

It was nearly 7 a.m., Wednesday, October 25. A military guard deployed around the ship and the U.S. Customs Representative mounted the steps to examine the ship's papers for entry into the port of Akron.

Wearing a blue hat with a Graf Zeppelin emblem, Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation Director Harry Vissering, who had boarded in Miami, was the first to descend the steps, to be greeted by other Goodyear officials on the ground.  Captain Eckener, in topcoat and felt hat, was greeted with a round of applause and popping flashbulbs when he walked down the gangway.

"Where's the stowaway?" a newsman asked the Captain, because of reports of a Cuban ground member having boarded in Miami.

"I don't know of any stowaway, unless it would be the Mayor of Miami, Mayor E.G. Sewell, one of my guests," Eckener replied with a grin.  When our family disembarked, dozens of newsmen took our pictures. They took so many pictures and asked so many questions that I said, "You give me a headache. I'm not going to answer any more silly questions."

"This is the first time this year we've been delayed so long. We have been lucky," Captain Eckener told the newsmen. "We could have come down, but it would have meant tying up to the mast on the field in the middle of the night, and think of that poor baby we had aboard! He might have missed his warm milk".

As it was, Billy had a nice bath and a sleep until morning. When Captain Eckener said this, he turned and waved at Billy who had a blue  blanket wrapped around his fuzzy white zipper suit. Billy smiled and waved back  at him.

Later, a sour-grapes reporter from Watertown, Wisconsin wrote: 

RATHER SILLY

Even big men do things that are silly. Yesterday the Graf Zeppelin, large  German dirigible flying from Germany to the World Fair at Chicago, moored at  Akron, Ohio. But before mooring, the commander, Dr. Eckener, who has crossed  the ocean 50 times now in the ship, stayed in the air above the city for 10  hours because he feared that in mooring he would disturb a young baby on board  the ship.

It certainly was thoughtful of the doctor to be so solicitous of the child, but  it was a rather ridiculous gesture, it seems to us. What if the baby had been  disturbed? It wouldn't have interfered with the child's health anyway, it isn't  every child that can have its rest disturbed by the Graf Zeppelin. 

For the sake of the child, 16 other passengers had to stay in the air 10 hours longer than necessary.

What the newsman missed was that it wasn't the "Zeppelin Baby" only that kept  Captain Eckener aloft, but the safety of all his passengers and crew.

Perhaps it was the cold, or my parents considered safety factors (because of  the Chicago bomb rumors), which made them decide to debark at Akron instead of  continuing to Chicago. So Thursday, October 27, at 7 a.m., the Graf Zeppelin,  carrying the rest of the passengers and 10,000 letters from Akron to Chicago,  was pulled to the ground at Curtiss Wright Airport, Glenview, Illinois. Two  hundred and fifty soldiers from Camp Whistler held the ship to the ground for 30  minutes, until the passengers, including Postmaster General James A. Farley and  President Dawes of the "Century of Progress," boarded for the return trip to  Akron.

Meanwhile, the German Ambassador had timed his arrival by train from Washington  to coincide with that of the Zeppelin. He had been asked to speak at a luncheon  in Chicago to discuss the recent political developments in Germany. The  swastika caused controversy again when the German Consulate in Chicago  requested that the Nazi emblem be flown for the German Ambassador at the  World's Fair reception. The consulate was advised that flags of nationals were  not displayed at receptions of other foreign dignitaries and there could be no  exceptions. The request was denied.

Captain Eckener did his part in refusing to display the swastika. Before  leaving Chicago for Akron, the Zeppelin circled the fairgrounds clockwise for  all to see, the Captain taking care not to show the port side with the Nazi  emblem painted on the tail fin.

From Akron the Graf Zeppelin completed the Germany­Brazil-U.S.-Germany  triangle safely, and returned to her home Port of Friedrichshafen.  The Graf Zeppelin safely handled 13,000 passengers and 76,000 tons of mail and  cargo, traveling over a million miles on 650 flights across continents and  oceans, before retirement and dismantling in 1940. The success of the Graf had  led to the building of the 804 foot long, 7,000,000 cubic foot LZ-129, Hindenburg, named after the German war hero, Paul von Hindenburg.

The luxury ship Hindenburg first flew to Rio Janeiro in 1936 and made a total of  63 successful flights before its tragic end. On May 6, 1937, moments before  landing at Lakehurst, N.J., the Hindenburg's hydrogen gas burst into flame.  Horrified spectators stood helplessly by, newsmen filmed, and Hindenburg  burned and crumpled into a fiery heap of tangled girders, killing many of the  passengers and crew.

Although a few witnesses and experts believe the blaze was ignited by sparks of  static electricity, others blame sabotage, but the exact source of the fire has  never been established.  The Hindenburg tragedy and the beginning of World War II, with the subsequent  development of the airplane, brought the era of rigid airships to an end.  Those fortunate enough to have seen the great silver ships float like sleek lazy  monsters through the skies, and who felt their almost mystic aura, would like to  dream that they are not extinct. But Francisco Pfaltzgraff, Brazilian  journalist and expert on rigid airships, suggests that only an economic miracle  like that of Echterdingen, would bring the Zeppelin back today. Then again, who  knows for sure? The time may come when passengers are once more taken on  luxurious rides across continents and oceans in quiet, clean, comfortable  lighter-than-air ships.

 Proceed to page 3

Return to page 1