The Hindenburg :: American America History

The HindenburgThe InfernoThe arrival of the Hindenburg, thirteen hours behind schedule, at Lakehurst, New Jersey, on the evening of May 6, 1937, promised to be r knocked out(p)ine. The ship had an unblemished safety device record on eighteen previous Atlantic crossings. In fact, no passenger had ever lost his life on any commercial airship. Still, because this was the start out of the most ambitious season yet for airship voy durations, reporters, photographers and news reel cameramen had their eyes and lenses focused on the great dirigible as it approached. When disaster touch it was sudden. Without warning flames gushed from within the Hindenburgs hull thirty-two seconds later the airship lay on the ground, ravaged. Never had the sights and sounds of a disaster in progress been so diagrammatically documented. Within a day, newspaper readers and theater audiences were confronted by fiery images of the Hindenburg. Radio listeners heard the emotional words of newsman Herb Morrison , sobbing into his recorder, Its burning, bursting into flames, and its falling on the mooring mast and all the folks. This is one of the worst catastrophes in the world. . . . Oh, the humanity and all the passengers(Marben 58) When this floating cathedral, called the Hindenburg, burst into a geyser of flaming hydrogen there was a tremendous impact on the public, although two thirds of the people on board survived. Two theories about why it happened surfaced and this tragedy put an end to the short age of these massive airships.The demise of the Hindenburg had a searing impact on public consciousness that far surpassed the bare statistics of the calamity. Men and women escaped, even from this inferno. One elderly lady walked out by the normal exit as though nothing had happened and was unscratched. A fourteen-year-old cabin boy jumped to the ground into flames and smoke. He was almost unconscious from the fumes when a water-ballast bag collapsed over his head. He got out. One passen ger hacked his way through a jungle of hot metal using his bare hands. Another emerged safely, scarcely to have another passenger land upon him and cripple him. One man, at an open window with every chance to jump to safety, went back into the flames to his wife, both died. The nett count was 36 dead, including 13 passengers. Nearly two thirds, of the 97 persons on board survived, but that fact was forever obscured, and the prenomen Hindenburg became comparable only to the name Titanic(Abbott 69).