Empires of the Sky

by Alexander Rose

  35. Quoted in T. A. Heppenheimer, Turbulent Skies: The History of Commercial Aviation (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1995), p. 17.

  36. Hallion, Taking Flight, pp. 316–17.

  37. Topping, When Giants Roamed the Sky, p. 57; Hartcup, Achievement of the Airship, p. 110; Belafi, The Zeppelin, p. 131; D’Orcy, “The Case for the Airship,” p. 303; Brooks, Zeppelin: Rigid Airships, Appendix 5, pp. 202–3. Some of the figures given differ between the various accounts. On the disproportionate increases by the airship, see “Is the Dirigible Outstripping the Airplane?” Scientific American, April 12, 1919, pp. 366–67; R. B. Price, “The Development of Commercial Dirigibles,” Scientific American, August 18, 1917, p. 103.

  38. Paul Jaray at Zeppelin contributed several dense and learned articles to specialist journals on this point. See, for instance, “The Development of Aircraft with Special Reference to the Zeppelin Airships,” Aviation and Aircraft Journal, April 4, 1921 (Part 1); April 11, 1921 (Part 2).

  39. The debate over the mathematics of airplane versus airship is covered in D’Orcy, “The Case for the Airship,” p. 304; W. Lockwood Marsh, “The Case for the Airship,” Aviation and Aeronautical Engineering, January 1, 1919; Anon., “The Position of Airships in the Future of Aeronautics,” Scientific American, December 28, 1918, p. 407; G. Whale, “Tomorrow’s Airships: A Survey of What Has Been Done in Commercial Aviation and Its Bearing on the Future,” Scientific American, July 30, 1921, pp. 80, 88; “The Airship of the Near Future,” Scientific American, July 19, 1919; “British Airship Development and Operations,” Aviation and Aeronautical Engineering, January 15, 1919; “Are We ‘Making Good’ in Aviation?” Literary Digest, March 9, 1918, p. 13.

  26. The Stolen Horse

  1. J. A. Lorelli, To Foreign Shores: U.S. Amphibious Operations in World War Two (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1995), p. 10; G. E. Wheeler, “The United States Navy and the Japanese ‘Enemy’: 1919–1931,” Military Affairs 21 (1957), no. 2, pp. 61–74; Robinson, Giants in the Sky, p. 182; Duggan and Meyer, Airships in International Affairs, pp. 72–74.

  2. “America’s New Super-Zeppelin,” Literary Digest, August 27, 1921, p. 19. See also G. H. Dacy, “Our ZR-2 Airship and Its Shed,” Scientific American, September 3, 1921, pp. 160, 171; R. Higham, The British Rigid Airship, 1908–1931: A Study in Weapons Policy (London: G. T. Foulis, 1961), pp. 203–29; Robinson and Keller, “Up Ship!” pp. 17–19, 21, 29–49. On the terms of the giveaway offer of the airships, see “Disposal of Airship: Terms of Government Offer,” Flight, June 2, 1921, p. 374.

  3. The New York Tribune gushed that at 700 feet long ZR-2, “aristocrat of the sky,” was so large that if it were stood upright next to the tallest skyscraper in the world, the Woolworth Building in New York, one would only be able to see 92 feet of stonework peeking up at the top. Quoted in “America’s New Super-Zeppelin,” p. 19.

  4. L. d’Orcy, “The Final Solution of the Airship Problem,” Scientific American, January 25, 1919, pp. 73, 84–86; Squier quoted in “Fire-Proof Balloons,” Literary Digest, February 22, 1919, pp. 27–28 (see also “Aeronautics in the United States,” Electrical Review, January 25, 1919); “Helium Was to Aid in Bombing Germans,” The New York Times, March 17, 1919; Anon., “If Germany Had Had Our Supply of Helium Gas,” Munsey’s Magazine, August 1919, pp. 524–25; Anon., “The Use of Helium for Airships,” The Scientific Monthly 8 (1919), no. 4, pp. 383–84; S. G. Roberts, “The Industrial Production of Helium,” Scientific American, May 1922, pp. 308–9; “Navy Had New Aero Terror for Germany When War Ended,” New York Tribune, March 17, 1919; C. W. Seibel, Helium: Child of the Sun (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1969), pp. 1, 20, 41–49; M. L. Levitt, “The Development and Politicization of the American Helium Industry, 1917–1940,” Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 30 (2000), no. 2, pp. 335–39.

  5. Robinson and Keller, “Up Ship!” p. 120.

  6. Robinson and Keller, “Up Ship!” pp. 120–21; Belafi, The Zeppelin, p. 161. On the critical distinction between a “compensation” and a “reparations” airship, see Robinson and Keller, “Up Ship!” p. 226, n. 16. On the Rathenau deal, see De Syon, Zeppelin! pp. 115–16; De Syon, “Turning a National Icon into a Business Tool,” p. 2, n. 5.

  7. Robinson, Giants in the Sky, pp. 171–73; on Wicks’s message, see “The Downfall of a Dirigible,” The Independent, September 17, 1921.

  8. “What Crumpled Up the ZR-2?” Literary Digest, September 24, 1921, pp. 20–21; “The Loss of the R-38,” Aviation and Aircraft Journal, September 5, 1921; L. d’Orcy, “The Lesson of the ZR-2 Disaster,” Scientific American, September 17, 1921, p. 200.

  9. “Is Airship Travel Profitable?” Scientific American, September 24, 1921. For similar views, see “The Loss of the R-38,” Aviation and Aircraft Journal, September 5, 1921.

  10. Robinson and Keller, “Up Ship!” pp. 120–21.

  11. Knäusel, Zeppelin and the United States of America, p. 35.

  12. Robinson and Keller, “Up Ship!” p. 124. On Jaray, see Topping, When Giants Roamed the Sky, p. 89.

  13. Appendix 7.1, “Excerpts from Contracts to Build ZR-3 (LZ-126) from June 26, 1922, between the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin, Friedrichshafen, and the United States Department of the Navy,” printed in Knäusel, Zeppelin and the United States of America, pp. 106–12.

  14. Fulton’s notes on personalities is in Robinson and Keller, “Up Ship!” p. 125; Weyerbacher’s comment on Eckener, p. 119; for Eckener’s remark about Lehmann, see Nielsen (trans. Chambers), The Zeppelin Story, p. 132. Lehmann’s views, which accorded with Dürr’s, are printed in Topping, When Giants Roamed the Sky, p. 75.

  15. Robinson and Keller, “Up Ship!” p. 126.

  16. Letter, Captain Frank Upham to Moffett, March 1, 1923, quoted in Robinson and Keller, “Up Ship!” p. 130.

  17. Robinson and Keller, “Up Ship!” pp. 125–28.

  18. Letter, Moffett to Henry Vissering, February 24, 1923, in Robinson and Keller, “Up Ship!” pp. 127–28.

  19. Köster, “Zeppelin: The Airship and the Need for Diversification After World War One (1918–1929),” p. 14. On the corporate structure, see Vissering, Zeppelin, pp. 10, 55; Topping, When Giants Roamed the Sky, p. 80.

  20. Letters, Fulton to Moffett, March 5 and March 6, 1923; Moffett to Fulton, April 16, in Robinson and Keller, “Up Ship!” pp. 128–29.

  21. Robinson and Keller, “Up Ship!” p. 131; H. Mingos, “The Airship Programme,” The Outlook, September 12, 1923; “Coming—One New Zeppelin, Our Only ‘Spoils of War,’ ” Literary Digest, April 21, 1923, pp. 58–60.

  22. “Building Zeppelin for the United States,” August 26, 1923; “Zeppelins to Keep Plant in Germany,” November 30, 1923; “Hundreds of Workmen to Lose Jobs on ZR-3,” The New York Times, May 12, 1924.

  23. Quoted in Robinson and Keller, “Up Ship!” p. 135.

  27. One Card

  1. Meyer, “In the Shadow of the Titan,” p. 71; Duggan and Meyer, Airships in International Affairs, p. 78; Topping, When Giants Roamed the Sky, pp. 90–93; “Goodyear Firm Buys Zeppelin Rights,” The New York Times, November 2, 1923; “Goodyear to Build Zeppelins Here,” The New York Times, November 8, 1923; “The American Zeppelin,” The Living Age, November 17, 1923. On Eckener and his bicycle, see “Remarks by Commander C. E. Rosendahl upon Occasion of Acceptance of Guggenheim Award for Dr. Hugo Eckener,” December 17, 1937, in Rosendahl Papers, Box 66, Folder 8, p. 3.

  2. Robinson and Keller, “Up Ship!” pp. 131, 134–36. In mid-March, the American press in Berlin was speculating, too optimistically, that Eckener would be taking the “giant airship on its trial trips in next few days.” T. R. Ybarra, “Prepare Zeppelin to Fly to America,” The New York Times, March 17, 1924.

  3. Topping, When Giants Roamed the Sky, pp. 80–81, 83; “America’s New Zeppelin,” The Living Age, October 18, 1924, p. 148.

 
4. “America’s New Zeppelin,” The Living Age, p. 145.

  5. On the Organization Consul, see “Secret Orders and Murder in Germany,” Literary Digest, May 5, 1923, pp. 52, 54–56; De Syon, Zeppelin!, pp. 119, 116; Topping, When Giants Roamed the Sky, p. 96; “The Last Zeppelin—Ours,” Literary Digest, October 24, 1924, p. 12. On Arnstein, “German Press Discusses Jewish Origin of Arnstein, Builder of the ZR-3,” Jewish Daily Bulletin, October 16, 1924.

  6. De Syon, “Turning a National Icon into a Business Tool,” p. 3; De Syon, Zeppelin!, pp. 120–21; Meyer, “France Perceives the Zeppelins, 1924–1937,” in Airshipmen, Businessmen, and Politics, pp. 169, 171.

  7. Appendix 7.1, “Excerpts from Contracts to Build ZR-3 (LZ-126),” in Knäusel, Zeppelin and the United States of America, p. 109.

  8. Italiaander, Ein Deutscher Namens Eckener, p. 217.

  28. Queen of the Air

  1. On the captains, Belafi, The Zeppelin, p. 164. On Eckener’s all-or-nothing view that “it was clear that not only the lives of the participants, but also the fate of the Zeppelin idea, would depend on our success,” see Eckener (trans. Robinson), My Zeppelins, p. 21.

  2. “Hundreds of Germans to Lose Jobs on ZR-3,” The New York Times, May 12, 1924.

  3. Robinson and Keller, “Up Ship!” p. 130; Italiaander, Ein Deutscher Namens Eckener, p. 205.

  4. Lehmann, Zeppelin, pp. 212–14.

  5. Lehmann, Zeppelin, p. 214.

  6. Eckener (trans. Robinson), My Zeppelins, p. 23; Lehmann, Zeppelin, p. 215.

  7. Eckener (trans. Robinson), My Zeppelins, pp. 24–27; Lehmann, Zeppelin, pp. 217–20. Eckener’s telegrams to Arnstein, Dürr, and Maybach are quoted in Topping, When Giants Roamed the Sky, p. 96. On meteorology in general on the trip, see W. Scherz, “In Three Days to America,” The Living Age, August 15, 1925 (orig. Uhu [Berlin], July); and Anon., “The Transatlantic Voyage of ZR-III,” Scientific American, August 1924, p. 115.

  8. “The Last Zeppelin—Ours,” p. 12; on the receipt, see Meyer, “Zeppelin Intermezzos in Detroit, 1920 and 1924,” in Airshipmen, Businessmen, and Politics, p. 140.

  9. Italiaander, Ein Deutscher Namens Eckener, p. 126.

  10. H. Mingos, “ZR-3—The New Leviathan of the Skies,” The Outlook, September 17, 1924, pp. 92–94.

  11. Lehmann, Zeppelin, pp. 219–20.

  12. Belafi, The Zeppelin, p. 167.

  13. Italiaander, Ein Deutscher Namens Eckener, pp. 201–2; Fritzsche, A Nation of Fliers, p. 139; Belafi, The Zeppelin, pp. 161, 166. On Eckener’s views of Beethoven and Wagner, see letter to his daughter, February 17, 1928, printed in Italiaander, p. 250; for his comment about changing musical tastes, see J. G. Vaeth, Graf Zeppelin: The Adventures of an Aerial Globetrotter (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958), p. 128.

  14. Letter to Johanna, October 19, 1924, printed in Italiaander, Ein Deutscher Namens Eckener, pp. 206–8; for Mayor Hylan’s proclamation, p. 216. Curtis Wilbur is quoted in Topping, When Giants Roamed the Sky, p. 99.

  15. Letter, Eckener to Johanna, undated but end of October 1924, in Italiaander, Ein Deutscher Namens Eckener, p. 209–10; for Ford’s comment to Eckener, see “Eckener Visit to Ford Arranged 4 Years Ago,” The New York Times, October 13, 1928.

  16. Quoted in Meyer, “Zeppelin Intermezzos in Detroit, 1920 and 1924,” p. 147.

  17. Meyer, “Building Rigid Airships,” pp. 107–8; Meyer, “Zeppelin Intermezzos in Detroit, 1920 and 1924,” p. 147.

  18. Fritzsche, A Nation of Fliers, p. 138.

  19. Topping, When Giants Roamed the Sky, pp. 96, 98. Letter, Johanna to Eckener, October 22, 1924, in Italiaander, Ein Deutscher Namens Eckener, p. 211.

  20. Quoted in Fritzsche, A Nation of Fliers, pp. 139–40.

  21. Letter, Johanna to Eckener, October 22, 1924, in Italiaander, Ein Deutscher Namens Eckener, p. 211.

  22. On Mussolini, see R. Wohl, The Spectacle of Flight: Aviation and the Western Imagination, 1920–1950 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2005), pp. 62–66.

  23. Göring, quoted in Bender and Altschul, Chosen Instrument, p. 109.

  24. On the airship in general, see Anon., “Our First Rigid Airship, the Shenandoah,” Scientific American, February 1924, pp. 82–83.

  25. Robinson, Giants in the Sky, pp. 198–200; Robinson and Keller, “Up Ship!” pp. 91–95.

  26. On the price of helium, Robinson, Giants in the Sky, pp. 194, 201.

  27. G. Fulton, “Fuel Gas and Helium for Airships,” The Royal United Services Institution Journal 74 (1929), no. 495, pp. 553–56; Robinson and Keller, “Up Ship!” p. 96.

  28. Anon., “Can Huge Dirigibles Supplant Our Expresses and Liners?” Literary Digest, January 10, 1925, pp. 52–56, quoting Eckener’s interview with Motor Life.

  29. Bilstein, Flight in America, p. 42; Davies, Airlines of the United States Since 1914, p. 35.

  30. On the Round-the-World flight, see Van Vleck, Empire of the Air, pp. 30–35; on the number of stops, see H. G. Dick and D. H. Robinson, The Golden Age of the Great Passenger Airships: Graf Zeppelin and Hindenburg (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985), p. 39.

  31. Italiaander, Ein Deutscher Namens Eckener, p. 246.

  29. Annus Horribilis

  1. Italiaander, Ein Deutscher Namens Eckener, p. 239.

  2. Meyer, “Eckener’s Struggle to Save the Airship for Germany, 1919–1929,” p. 130; letter from Eckener, July 6, 1925, printed in Meyer, “The Political Origins of the Airship Graf Zeppelin, 1924–1928,” pp. 161–62.

  3. Meyer, “Eckener’s Struggle to Save the Airship for Germany, 1919–1929,” p. 133; Meyer, “In the Shadow of the Titan,” pp. 75–76; Meyer, “The Political Origins of the Airship Graf Zeppelin, 1924–1928,” in Airshipmen, Businessmen, and Politics, p. 162.

  4. Italiaander, Ein Deutscher Namens Eckener, pp. 234–41, 141–42; Eckener (trans. Robinson), My Zeppelins, pp. 29–31. On the hectic schedule, see Schiller, “A Million Miles in a Zeppelin,” Schiller Papers, p. 68.

  5. On Colsman’s estimate, see Köster, “Zeppelin: The Airship and the Need for Diversification After World War One (1918–1929),” p. 22, n. 110.

  6. On the disaster, see the detailed accounts in Robinson and Keller, “Up Ship!” pp. 105–15 and Appendix D, “The Shenandoah’s Midwest Flight Itinerary,” p. 204; Anon., “Technical Aspects of the Loss of the U.S.S. Shenandoah,” Journal of the American Society of Naval Engineers 38 (1926), no. 3, pp. 487–580; Robinson, Giants in the Sky, pp. 203–6. Arnstein’s comments are in Topping, When Giants Roamed the Sky, pp. 116–17.

  7. On the differences between German and American techniques, see Topping, When Giants Roamed the Sky, pp. 116–17.

  8. For Eckener’s views on traversing the United States, now disappointed, see “The Los Angeles and Commerce,” The Outlook, October 29, 1924, p. 310.

  9. “No Turning Back in America’s Conquest of the Air,” Literary Digest, September 19, 1925, pp. 5–8.

  30. The Fox

  1. Rust, Flying Across America, p. 24.

  2. Van der Linden, Airlines and Air Mail, pp. 10–11.

  3. N. A. Komons, “William A. MacCracken, Jr. and the Regulation of Civil Aviation,” in Leary (ed.), Aviation’s Golden Age, p. 38; K. Tuan, “Aviation Insurance in America,” Journal of Risk and Insurance 32 (1965), no. 1, pp. 2–4.

  4. Hoover quoted in Komons, “William A. MacCracken,” p. 38. D. D. Lee, “Herbert Hoover and the Golden Age of Aviation,” in Leary (ed.), Aviation’s Golden Age, pp. 127–28; D. D. Lee, “Herbert Hoover and the Rise of Commercial Aviation, 1921–1926.” Business History Review 58 (1984), pp. 78–102; E. Hawley, “Three Facets of Hooverian Associationalism: Lumber, Aviation, and Movies, 1921–1930,” in T. McCraw (ed.), Regulation in Perspective: Historical Essays (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981), pp. 95–123.
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br />   5. Davies, Airlines of the United States Since 1914, pp. 33–35; Komons, “William A. MacCracken,” pp. 35–59.

  6. Komons, “William A. MacCracken,” p. 46. On insurance rates, see A. Klemin, “American Passenger Air Transport,” Scientific American, October 1929, p. 361.

  7. Davies, Airlines of the United States Since 1914, p. 165.

  8. Pisano, “The Greatest Show on Earth,” pp. 56–57, 59.

  9. Komons, “William A. MacCracken,” pp. 45, 38; Bilstein, Flight in America, p. 72.

  10. Letter, Daniel Guggenheim to Hoover, January 16, 1926; and memorandum, California Institute of Technology, “Development of Aeronautics,” August 1926, printed in J. R. Hansen et al. (eds.), Wind and Beyond, Documents 2–23 (a–b), pp. 604–10; R. Schwartz, Flying Down to Rio: Hollywood, Tourists, and Yankee Clippers (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2004), p. 218; R. Hallion, “Daniel and Harry Guggenheim and the Philanthropy of Aviation,” in Leary (ed.), Aviation’s Golden Age, pp. 18–34; Bilstein, Flight in America, p. 73.

  11. Davies, Airlines of the United States Since 1914, pp. 38–39. See also D. Bloor, The Enigma of the Aerofoil: Rival Theories in Aerodynamics, 1909–1930 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011).