Accidents: Oh, the Humanity!

By Delia DeLeest

It was the equivalent of riding in a cruise ship in the air. You could take an airplane if you wanted to, but it was so much more elegant and comfortable taking a dirigible. The most famous dirigibles were made by Zeppelin and its newest ship was called The Hindenburg.

Zeppelin was very proud of its ships safety history. Its flagship, the LZ127 Graf Zeppelin, during its nine year career, traveled 1.5 million miles (590 flights) with a perfect passenger safety record. The Hindenburg had already made its maiden voyage from Frankfurt, Germany to Rio de Janeiro back in March of 1936, and then it was heading to Manchester, New Jersey. It was time to land in its final destination.

It was 7:25pm on May 6, 1937. Though it was capable of handling seventy passengers, it was only half full, with a passenger list of thirty-six people being serviced by a crew of sixty-one. Its return trip was fully booked, with many people were heading to Europe for the coronation of England's new king, George VI. At 803 feet long and 103 feet in diameter, the huge, silver ship was beautiful.

Bad weather, forced the ship to circle the landing field for three hours before it began its final descent. Times were sure different then. Can you imagine the fuss people would make now days if they were forced to circle the airport for three hours before their plane landed? But, then again, The Hindenburg was a whole lot more comfortable than today's 747s.

The crew had finally dropped the mooring lines to the grounds men below when disaster struck. Nobody is sure what exactly happened, though there are many theories, including sabotage, lightning, and incendiary paint. The most common conclusion is that a combination of static electricity, created by the bad weather, and a leak in a cell of hydrogen--the lighter-than-air gas used to float the mighty ship.

The whys and hows don't really matter now. What is known is that at 7:25pm, as it was landing, The Hindenburg burst into flames. The fire started in the rear of the vessel--whether on the port or starboard side is debated, as there were conflicting accounts--and quickly spread through the entire ship. In about thirty-five seconds from start to finish, the entire ship was engulfed in flames and crashed to the ground.

Though hydrogen is relatively harmless on its own, it becomes highly flammable when mixed with oxygen. Within ninety seconds of it igniting, the ship's entire supply had been burned up. The rest of the ship burned for several hours after the crash. With an outer skin of cotton cloth covered with a plasticized lacquer, The Hindenburg was a firebomb looking for a place to happen.

In my eyes, the most fascinating aspect of the entire Hindenburg disaster is the low fatality count. Though it took only about forty-five seconds for the entire crash and burn, only thirteen passengers were killed, with the majority of those seated on the starboard side of the craft. Along with the passengers, there were twenty-two Hindenburg crew members killed and one man on the ground crew--in all, slightly more than one third of the number of people traveling on the Hindenburg, and an unknown number of people on the ground both working as crew and spectators (the landing of the mighty Zeppelin was a big event, even without its subsequent crash).

Though there were at least five moving picture cameras at the scene, none of them was trained on the vessel when it burst into flames. The famous Herbert Morrison radio broadcast is the only live record of the actual event. His commentary later became the first recorded radio news report to be nationally broadcast by NBC. Later, Morrison's poignant report was streamed with video footage of the catastrophe taken both before and after the disaster and makes for some incredibly heart-touching viewing.


So, what really happened to The Hindenburg? No one will probably ever know. But, what we do know is that the tragedy undermined the public's confidence in the huge airships, that along with the development of Pan American Airlines, ushered in the end of the age of huge passenger airships. In 1987, on the fiftieth anniversary of the tragedy, a bronze plaque surrounded by a chain was dedicated at the scene of the crash at Lakehurst Navel Air Station.

Delia DeLeest is fascinated by all things 1920s. She suspects she was once a flapper or, more probably, a bootlegger in a previous life. Her third 1920s era book, NOT LOOKING FOR TROUBLE, is being released from The Wild Rose Press at the end of October.

Good Times: England's First Coast-to-Coast Railway

By Michelle Styles

On 18 June 1838, the Newcastle to Carlisle railway officially open with a planned Grand Event. Rail traffic had already been travelling along the line since 1834, but 18 June marked the first time railway carriages would go the full length of the line. Newcastle to Carlisle was the first coast to coast railway and boasted such innovations as stations designed for passengers as well goods (Hexham).

The day was meticulously planned with passengers from Carlisle taking six early morning trains to Redheugh. They then went by steamer to the Newcastle quayside. (Newcastle Central Station was opened in 1851) So far, so good. And the organisers were justifiably proud of the event. They should have perhaps noted that the 18th of June is Waterloo day and that Waterloo was a close run thing. But at this stage, the organisers were enjoying the day.

Things began to go wrong when a gangway collapsed and dumped about dozen people in all their finery into the Tyne.

Breakfast at the Assembly Rooms took rather longer than expected. When the various Great and Good went to find their seats, they discovered the general public had already boarded the trains. The chief magistrates of Carlisle and Newcastle were obliged to take refuge in a pig cart while the rest of the civic dignitaries scrambled for seats in the open carriages.

Finally, the 13 packed trains started off with one engine having a steam engine fitted to its front and gaily playing music.

Unfortunately for the Great and the Good stuck in the open carriages, the heavens opened and it rained solidly to Brampton. Once the very delayed trains reached Carlisle, there was a stampede for refreshments. The arranged procession through town had to be cancelled, and again there was a rush for the few remaining seats. It is to be supposed that the Great and the Good thought their ordeal had ended.

Unfortunately the journey back was worse. The rain continued. One train hit the back of another with two passengers injured. With the delays came, the call of nature and several gentlemen heeded it, only to have to rush back, clothing askew as the whistle sounded much to the amusement of other passengers. No comment is made about the discomfort ladies suffered.

Instead of arriving back in the early evening, the first train arrived back in Newcastle at 3 am, and the last at 6 am on the 19th.

It was a memorable day...if not quite what was planned.

The Newcastle to Carlisle railway is still in use today. The train journey is somewhat less fraught.

Humans in Nature: Travels on the Rhine

By Sandra Schwab

In 1795. Anne Radcliffe wrote about her journey along the Rhine:

Sometimes, as we approached a rocky point, we seemed going to plunge into the expanse of the water beyond; when, turning the sharp angle of the promontory, the road swept along an ample bay, where the rocks, receding formed an amphitheatre, [...] then [...] we saw the river beyond [...] assume the form of a lake, amidst wild and romantic landscapes."
Anne Radcliffe, Journey Made in the Summer of 1794, through Holland and the Western Frontier of Germany with a Return down the Rhine, 1795

Anne Radcliffe belonged to the first wave of Rhine tourists. During the Napoleonic Wars, travelling came more or less to a halt, but immediately afterwards the second wave of British tourists arrived on the banks of Father Rhine. There were so many of them that later in the century the writer Thomas Hood remarked:

It is a statistical fact that since 1814 an unknown number of persons have been more or less abroad, and of all the Countries in Christendom, never was there such a run as on the Banks of the Rhine. It was impossible to go into Society without meeting units, tens, hundreds, thousands of Rhenish tourists. What a donkey they deemed him who had not been to Assmannshausen!

One of the most popular, if not the most popular, literary text about a Rhine journey was Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. In Canto III, stanza XLVI, Byron writes:

...Maternal Nature! ...who teems like thee,
Thus on the banks of thy majestic Rhine?
There Harold gazes on a work divine
A blending of all beauties; streams and dells,
Fruit, foliage, crag, wood, cornfield, mountain, vine,
And chiefless castles breathing stern farewells
From gray but leafy walls, where Ruin greenly dwells.

Byron goes on to describe the picturesque view of ruins and hills clothed with forest or vine. Some places he even lists by name:

The castled crag of Drachenfels
Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine,
Whose breast of water broadly swells
Between the banks which bear the vine,
And hills all rich with blossom'd trees,
And fields which promise corn and wine,
And scatter'd cities crowning these;
Whose far white walls along them shine..."

British tourists would drag a copy of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage along on their travels on the Rhine from then on, so they could trace Childe Harold's steps. This becomes obvious in the Shelleys' History of a Six Weeks Tour, from 1817:

The part of the Rhine down which we now glided, is that so beautifully described by Lord Byron in his third Canto of CHILDE HAROLD. We read these verses with delight, as they conjured before us these lovely scenes with the truth and vividness of painting, and with the exquisite addition of glowing language and warm imagination. We were carried down by a dangerously rapid current, and saw on either side of us hills covered with vines and trees, craggy cliffs crowned by desolate towers, and wooded islands, where picturesque ruins peeped from behind the foliage, and cast shadows of their forms on the troubled waters, which distorted without deforming them.

Mary Shelley also chose the Rhine as one of the settings of her 1818 gothic novel Frankenstein

The course of the Rhine below Mainz becomes much more picturesque. The river descends rapidly and winds between hills, not high, but steep, ad of beautiful forms. We saw many ruined castles standing on the edges of the precipices, surrounded by black woods, high and inaccessible.

Apart from the writers, British painters, too, chose the Rhine and its legends as subjects for their art. Among artists were Turner and Waterhouse, and they, of course, made the sights and legends of the Rhine even more famous.

If you'd like to find out more about travels on the Rhine, check out the background information to CASTLE OF THE WOLF on Sandra's website.

Where would you go?

I've never felt the sting of sand against my cheek as I trudge through the Valley of the Kings while exploring tombs. I've never inhaled the dank scent of the Nile. Never heard the haunting, lyrical chant of the muezzin calling the faithful to evening prayer. These feet have never dangled over the sides of a little white donkey riding toward the Valley, or walked where proud pharaohs once prayed to jackal-headed gods.

I've never seen the yellowed, friendly smile of a fellahin as he tries to sell me a cartouche with my name inscribed on it. Never heard the shouts of the vendors in Cairo, coughed in the dust stirred by carriages rattling past or stared at the majestic rise of the pyramids, shadowed and golden against the rose-violet setting sun. Never heard the flapping sails of a felucca drifting up the Nile. Never heard the shouts of barefoot children herding sheep. Heard the thunder of hooves of Arabians galloping over the desert plain.

The stifling, musty heat of a tomb more than 3,000 years old has never encased my body as I explore, caressing the ancient rock and wondering what rough hands labored to hewn it for the long-dead king. I've never heard the singing of a pick biting into the rocky sands or the grunt of basket boys struggling to carry rock away from an excavation site.

Yet all these things I have experienced...in my mind. I have never visited Egypt, but I've been there for five books.

Yesterday I went there again as I wrote The Scorpion and the Seducer, my sixth Egyptian historical for Dorchester. I heard the labored breathing of Thomas, his boots slipping on the slope of a rocky path as his sweating palm encases Jasmine's, tugging her up the mountain. He is running from the assassin who tried strangling Jasmine in the tomb. Wind whips the pretty emerald scarf hiding the flowering blue bruises around her neck. In the distance they can see the cool refreshment of the Nile, and the safety of the Winter Palace, where dignified servants hover over ladies languidly sipping tea and complaining of luxurious boredom. His parched throat aches, his mouth feels drier than the gritty sand, but he pushes on, determined to keep Jasmine safe from her killer.

For me, writing about a place, a time and a culture I've never experienced requires extensive research. Armchair traveling is the only option when I write a book on Egypt. But it's a journey well-worth taking, even if I can only, rather wistfully, visit in my mind.

What areas do you visit when writing your books and what methods do you employ to reach your destination? Is there one country, city or town you long to explore, but you will probably only do so through research and your writing?