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A MILESTONE MOMENT IN LOCAL HISTORY
By Eric San Juan
 | | The most famous airship ever to grace the skies, the Hindenburg, is engulfed by flame over Lakehurst. Sunday, May 6 marked the 70th Anniversary of the disaster. |
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LAKEHURST - In the surprisingly storied history of the tiny Borough of Lakehurst, one event looms over all the others.
That event is, of course, the explosion of the Hindenburg, an 800-foot German zeppelin that was the largest craft ever to take to the skies.
On Sunday, dozens came together at Navy Lakehurst to recognize the 70th Anniversary of this iconic - and tragic - moment.
Lakehurst was no stranger to airships when the Hindenburg exploded in 1937. Lakehurst had been home to a "dirigible field" since 1919, when Franklin D. Roosevelt, then Secretary of the Navy, purchased some 1,700 acres of land outside Lakehurst to develop the use of airships in the U.S. military. Nearly 20 years of airships followed, with Lakehurst all but becoming the airship capital of the world during that span.
To this day, the Hindenburg remains the largest vessel ever to take to the skies. It was over 800 feet long; as long as two football fields and the majority of a third. It routinely made the flight from Germany to Lakehurst, making the journey in a mere two days while carrying scores of passengers.
The craft made its first appearance over the Borough of Lakehurst in May 1936, carrying over 100 passengers and crewmen and over 2,000 pounds of mail. During that first visit, an estimated 75,000 people came to the base over the course of three days to see the famous vessel. The trip gave Lakehurst the distinction of being the first official international airport in North America.
The Hindenburg was undeniably luxurious for its time. It featured a lounge and dining rooms, a smoking room - right next to thousands of cubic feet of highly flammable hydrogen - and a spectacular viewing room. Chefs prepared gourmet meals. It was, by all accounts, an elegant affair enjoyed by the rich and privileged.
Like so many Lakehurst residents during the 1930s, memories of the Hindenburg remain fresh to Leo Whalen, probably better known to longtime residents as Pete Whalen.
"When that came over, everybody looked. I remember I saw it in the summer of 1936," Whalen said. "I remember the German sailors coming over to my father's store to buy soda and candy and souvenirs to bring back to Germany."
A number of flights followed.
On May 3, 1937, the German aircraft took off from its airfield in Frankfurt and made a seemingly routine voyage across the Atlantic, the 10th time it had made the journey. Some 97 people were on board.
Three days later, the disaster, about which volumes have been written, occurred.
It was overcast when the craft sailed in on its 10th journey to Lakehurst, raining intermittently, but the weather was manageable and improving.
On the ground watching the Hindenburg come in along with a throng of other spectators was broadcaster Herbert Morrison and his sound engineer, Charlie Nehlson, covering the event for a Chicago radio station. The work they did that day has become legendary.
As Morrison watched the Hindenburg cruise into town, all seemed well.
"What a great sight it is, a thrilling one, just a marvelous sight," Morrison broadcasted. "It's coming down out of the sky, pointed directly toward us and toward the mooring mast. The mighty diesel motors just roared, the propellers biting into the air and throwing it back into a gale-like whirlpool. No wonder this great floating palace can travel through the air at such a speed, with these powerful motors behind it."
Even as the broadcast went on, John Iannaccone was below the Hindenburg working with the mooring mast crew, helping to haul the airship in, a part of the mass of cooperative action Morrison described. By 1937, Iannaccone had worked with airships for nearly a decade. He wasn't seeing anything he hadn't seen before. That would soon change.
Meanwhile, the picture Morrison painted for his listeners was vivid. The Hindenburg was "riding majestically toward us like some great feather, riding as though it was mighty good, mighty proud of the place it's playing in the world's aviation." For a brief moment, he mentioned the start of rain - and then in mid thought the broadcast changed.
"It's starting to rain again; the rain had slacked up a little bit. The back motors of the ship are just holding it, just enough to keep it from - "
"It burst into flames! Get out of the way! Get out of the way!" Morrison wailed. "Get this, Charlie! Get this, Charlie! 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 is 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! Oh, it's crashing ... oh, four or five hundred feet into the sky, and it's a terrific crash, ladies and gentlemen. 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!"
A short mile or so away, watching from the quiet confines of the Borough of Lakehurst, were scores of town residents. Among them was Whalen. He was watching when disaster struck.
"I was looking at it with my cousin with binoculars," Whalen recalled. "And then we could see the explosion, the fire."
The massive Hindenburg, the largest aircraft ever to take flight, was on fire. Flame and disaster began to rain from the sky.
As it fell, the smoldering remains of the massive craft were raining down upon the dozens below. Burning cinders and framework, and even crew members and passengers trying in futility to leap to safety.
But even as the airship fell, Iannaccone did not turn and run. He sprang into action.
"As most people at the scene were running from underneath the enormous airship as it began its fiery 30-second decent into history, Iannaccone observed what was happening from the mooring mast and began rescuing survivors," Thomas Worsdale, Public Affairs Officer at the Navy base, wrote in 2002 about Iannaccone's efforts.
As big as the event looms in aviation history, it was over in a matter of moments. "By the time it hit the ground, it was out," Iannaccone said. "It burned that quick."
In just 37 seconds, the Hindenburg was lost.
With it went 36 victims.
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