"Toward us, like a great feather ... is the Hindenburg. The members of the crew are looking down on the field ahead of them getting their glimpses of the mooring mast. . . ."
Radio Commentator Herbert Morrison was chattering thus idly into his microphone at the Naval airbase in Lakehurst, N. J. The Hindenburg had made ten round trips to the U. S. in 1936 and this arrival was being "covered" by radio only because it was her first of 1937, nothing sensational. In fact, Morrison's words were not going out over the ether. He was making an electrical transcription to be broadcast the next day.
"It is practically standing still now. The ropes have been dropped and they have been taken hold of by a number of men on the field. It is starting to rain again. The rain had slacked up a little bit. The back motors of the ship are holding it just enough to keep it—
"IT'S BURST INTO FLAME!
"Get out of the way! Get this—Charley, get out of the way please! It is bursting into flames. This is terrible! This is one of the worst catastrophes in the world! The flames are 500 ft. into the sky. It is a terrific crash, ladies and gentlemen. It is in smoke and flames now. Oh, the humanity! Those passengers! I can't talk, ladies and gentlemen! Honest, it is a mass of smoking wreckage. Lady, I am sorry. Honestly, I can hardlyק am going to step inside where I can't see it. Charley, that is terrible! Listen, folks, I am going to have to stop for a minute because I have lost my voice."
Few seconds later Announcer Morrison recovered his voice, went on with his transscription. But by that time the worst and most completely witnessed disaster in the history of commercial aviation was over, the 803-ft. Hindenburg was gone, destroyed in precisely 32 sec. before 1,000 appalled spectators. It was almost as if it had been done as a laboratory experiment, like a discarded battleship blown up for target practice before experts. If such an experiment had been planned, it would have been hard to gather a more competent battalion of onlookers—Commander Charles Emery Rosendahl, No. 1 U. S. airship man; representatives of Deutsche Zeppelin Reederai; aviation editors and reporters from all important newspapers, magazines and press services; pilots and hostesses of American Airlines ready to ferry the Hindenburg's passengers to Newark, and a gay crowd waving to relatives and friends clustered at the airship's windows 300 ft. above ground.