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With a Cra-a-a-ack! the ship buckled. Down on the ground went the stern with a peculiarly gentle crash amid clouds of dust and smoke. As the still undamaged bow tilted up at 45°, the flame rushed through the middle and geysered in a long bright plume from the nose. For an instant the Hindenburg seemed a rearing reptile darting its tongue in anger. Then it was a gigantic halfback tackled behind the knees and falling forward on its face. The huge bag settled slowly to earth with fire roaring over it 50 yd. a second. Last place it reached was the passenger section in the belly, about one-third back from the bow. Silhouetted by the holocaust, passengers began dropping out of the windows like peas from a collander. From the control cabin swarmed officers and crew. Struggling figures emerged from the blazing hulk, stumbled, rose, fell again in fiery suffocation or from broken legs, shock, concussion. Down on the slowest ones then smashed the enormous incandescent mass in a blazing blizzard of fabric, crashing girders, melted duralumin. Still out of the inferno crept struggling figures, afire from head to foot, some stark naked, their clothes burned away, their skin and flesh in sizzling tatters.
Out rang the deep voice of Chief Boatswain's Mate Frederick J. Tobin, in charge of the ground crew: "Navy men, stand fast! We've got to get those people out of there!" With tremendous bravery, scores of gobs and civilians dashed headlong back to the conflagration. Though the heat was so intense that thermometers rose in the Navy Aerological School 500 yd. away, the rescuers charged into the control cabin and the passenger quarters. As one observer put it: "Those boys dived into the flames like dogs after rabbits!" Someone found Captain Lehmann, his clothes frizzled to the skin in back, his hair ablaze, his face rutted with third-degree burns, wandering about babbling: "Das versteh' ich nicht!" (I don't understand it) over & over. Another led out Captain Pruss, his clothes mostly gone, his lips like two roasted sausages. A naked man, broiled yellow, staggered out, murmured, "I'm all right," fell dead. One rescuer pulled out two dead dogs. Another brought two children, both with broken bones, horrible burns. Seated in a bonfire of debris, one man dazedly slapped at his burning clothes. Gobs doused him with sand, yanked him away. A Hindenburg steward named Kubis courageously ran back into his ship to save the metal money box. He bore it proudly to his officers. But all the bills within had charred to ashes. Also lost was a valuable 340-lb. cargo of which the chief known items were photo-graphs and newsreel films. Of 240 Ib. of mail, only 200 charred letters were saved.