I Survived the Hindenburg Disaster, 1937 Read online

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  FRONTISPIECE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  WOULD YOU WANT TO RIDE ON A ZEPPELIN?

  QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ABOUT THE HINDENBURG

  MORE HINDENBURG FACTS

  RESOURCES

  SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT

  In seconds, the Hindenburg would explode. The greatest flying machine ever built would burst into flames. It would crash to the ground in a heap of twisted metal and smoldering ash.

  Just minutes before, eleven-year-old Hugo Ballard had been standing at the airship’s huge windows. After a three-day journey across the Atlantic, the Hindenburg was about to land.

  But then came the massive explosion.

  Kaboom!

  On the ground, hundreds of people had gathered to watch the landing. Now they stared in horror as the great airship erupted into a massive fireball.

  And inside the crippled airship, Hugo was in a fight for his life.

  The force of the explosive blast sent him flying back. He landed on the ground with a sickening thud. Frantic people fell on top of him, and he was nearly crushed.

  Someone’s heavy shoe kicked his face. An elbow jabbed him in the eye. A knee pressed against his throat, making it impossible to breathe.

  He managed to free himself, but now the flames were everywhere. Poisonous black smoke rushed up his nose and down his throat. Tears gushed from his burning eyes. Red-hot drops of molten metal rained down, burning through his clothes and sizzling against his skin.

  But Hugo barely noticed the pain. He just wanted to find his parents and his little sister, Gertie. He cried out for them, but his words were smothered by the terrible noises all around — screams of pain and panic, the shattering of glass, the crackle and roar of the flames. People smashed windows and leaped out, their terrified cries echoing as they fell through the fiery sky.

  Hugo clawed his way across the floor, gasping for breath. The searing heat blistered his hands and knees.

  He could feel the airship falling, falling, falling. Any second it would crash to the ground.

  The Hindenburg was doomed.

  And so, it seemed, was Hugo.

  Hugo held his four-year-old sister, Gertie, tightly in his arms. They were standing in the airport waiting room. Within the hour, they’d be flying to America on the Hindenburg. Now they just had to have their bags inspected by the mean-looking German guards.

  “No matches or lighters will be permitted on the Hindenburg!” a soldier barked out in English and German.

  The guards talked in a way that made every word sound like a curse.

  “Why are they so worried about matches?” Mom asked nervously.

  Mom wasn’t the jittery type — she’d shoo a deadly snake from their kitchen as if it were a ladybug. But none of them had ever flown before. And the idea of rising more than six hundred feet into the sky and then flying across the Atlantic Ocean was making her nervous.

  Dad gave Mom a pat on the arm. “It’s just because the Hindenburg is powered by hydrogen gas. It’s very flammable.”

  “Please don’t remind me,” Mom said, looking queasy.

  Dad put an arm around Mom’s shoulders and pulled her close.

  “You don’t have to worry,” he said. “The Germans have a perfect safety record with their zeppelins. Right, Hugo?”

  He shot Hugo a look that said, I need some help here.

  “It’s true, Mom,” Hugo chimed in. He’d learned all he could about the Hindenburg and its sister ship, the Graf Zeppelin. Now he tried to remember some of the amazing facts he’d read.

  “The Hindenburg made thirty-four trips across the Atlantic last year,” he said, using his most expert voice. “And the Graf Zeppelin has flown more than a million miles without one problem. Really, Mom. The Hindenburg is the safest way to travel.”

  Mom perked up a little bit.

  “That’s good,” she said. “But I’d still rather be on a nice big ship.”

  “Like the Titanic?” Dad said, raising an eyebrow.

  Who could forget the celebrated ocean liner that had hit an iceberg and sunk twenty-five years ago?

  Mom frowned, but Dad had made a good point. Thousands of people had died in shipwrecks over the years. And not one person had been killed on a German passenger airship.

  Of course, there had been some grisly accidents on military airships over the years — fiery explosions and deadly crashes. The most terrible was the disaster of a U.S. Navy airship that had happened just a few years ago. The Akron had been flying off the coast of New Jersey when it was swept into a violent thunderstorm. It crashed into the ocean and more than seventy men were killed.

  But German airships, known as zeppelins, were different. They were famous for their safety. German pilots were the very best in the world. Hugo really didn’t have the slightest worry about the Hindenburg.

  What he was worried about, as usual, was his little sister.

  Gertie wasn’t feeling so well today. And now she was all teary over their dog, Panya. It turned out dogs weren’t allowed in the passenger areas of the Hindenburg. A few minutes ago, a member of the zeppelin’s crew had come to take their little mutt away. Panya would spend the voyage in the Hindenburg’s cargo hold.

  Hugo didn’t know who howled louder when Panya was carried off — the dog or Gertie.

  Gertie looked at Hugo.

  “I miss Panya,” she said, her lip trembling.

  “I have an idea,” Hugo said, straightening one of Gertie’s curly pigtails. “Let’s go look at the zeppelin.”

  If anything could get Gertie’s mind off Panya, it was the Hindenburg.

  Hugo’s plan worked.

  Gertie’s blue eyes popped open as they stared out the window at the massive zeppelin. It sat on its airfield, tied down by thick white ropes. It reminded Hugo of a spectacular beast, with metal bones showing through silver skin.

  But Gertie had a different idea.

  “Oogo, it looks like a giant sausage!”

  Hugo laughed; she had a point.

  But that giant sausage happened to be the biggest airship ever built. At least a hundred crewmen scurried around it. The zeppelin was so huge that the men looked like flies buzzing around an elephant.

  Hugo gave Gertie a little lesson about zeppelins. Some people called them airships or dirigibles, he explained, but he liked the word zeppelin. The word was actually the name of the brilliant man who figured out how to get these huge airships to fly, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin.

  Hugo pointed out the little car that hung from the bottom of the zeppelin, right behind its nose. That was the control car, the Hindenburg’s cockpit, where the captain and his crew steered the ship. The passenger compartment was just behind, tucked into the ship’s belly.

  Gertie turned to Hugo. “Where are its wings?”

  “It doesn’t need them,” he explained. “It’s filled up with gas — a special kind of air — that makes it rise into the sky.”

  “Like a balloon,” Gertie said happily.

  “Yes,” Hugo said, even though that wasn’t really right. The Hindenburg’s sausage body was actually made of a very light metal.
And then the metal frame was covered with a strong fabric. But Gertie was close enough.

  Hugo pointed out the four powerful engines that were bolted to the Hindenburg’s body. Once the Hindenburg was in the air, the engines would rev up, and giant propellers would push the airship forward.

  “Oogo, are we really going to fly?” Gertie asked.

  “We are,” Hugo said, barely believing it himself.

  Just three weeks before, they’d been thousands of miles away, in the East African country of Kenya. They’d moved there from New York City a year ago. Mom and Dad were science professors. They had always wanted to study the lions in Kenya’s Thika Valley. For years it was just a dream. And then eighteen months ago, Mom’s aunt Sylvie died, leaving Mom her life’s savings. It wasn’t a fortune, but it was more than enough to pay for a year or so in Kenya.

  “It will be a family adventure,” Mom had said.

  And what an adventure it had turned out to be.

  From their front porch, they could watch herds of zebras and giraffes strolling through the high golden grass. At night, roars of lions echoed through the darkness.

  “And good night to you!” Gertie would holler back at them.

  Sure, at first Hugo missed his pals and his school and his beloved Yankees. But somehow he was never lonely. He had Gertie to chase after. There was the one-eared baboon that came to visit Hugo every day while he did his schoolwork on the porch. And then there was Panya, the ragged mutt that showed up at their door one day and refused to leave. He was a little guy — panya means mouse in the African language Swahili. But that mousy dog had the brave heart of a lion. He was Gertie and Hugo’s fiercest protector.

  Hugo had seen more in this past year than most people see in their whole lives. He’d watched twenty-foot pythons climbing up trees and mother crocodiles carrying their babies in their wide-open jaws. He’d seen that one-eared baboon outsmart an eight-thousand-pound hippo.

  But Hugo had never seen anything like the Hindenburg.

  The zeppelin was known around the world. The Hindenburg was as famous as Hugo’s favorite Yankee, Lou Gehrig. But never had Hugo imagined that he’d have the chance to fly on a zeppelin. His New York pals would say he was the luckiest kid on the planet.

  Hugo felt anything but lucky, though.

  Because this trip on the Hindenburg wasn’t just another family adventure.

  They were returning to New York City because Gert was very sick.

  Her illness had struck six months ago. One day Gert was her joyful self. And the next morning she could barely move, and her body burned with fever.

  Weeks passed, then months, and Gertie didn’t get better. The fever would disappear for a few weeks, but then it would come raging back. Twice her fever got so high she almost didn’t make it through the night. It turned out Gertie had a bad case of malaria, a disease that came from mosquitoes. Dad had gotten malaria, too. But it was more dangerous for little kids, and Gertie just couldn’t get well.

  That’s why they had come to Germany two weeks ago, to see a famous expert in children’s diseases. He had no cure, but he told them about a team of doctors in New York City that had a new kind of medicine. As they were leaving his office, the doctor had pulled Dad aside, and Hugo overheard his whispered warning.

  “Get your daughter back to New York as quickly as you can,” he’d warned. “You are running out of time.”

  Now Hugo wrapped his arms a little tighter around his sister and swallowed the lump in his throat.

  No, this journey on the Hindenburg wasn’t for excitement.

  It was to save Gert’s life.

  Gertie dropped off to sleep in Hugo’s arms, and Hugo leaned back against the wall. He looked around the room, wondering if he would spot any celebrities. Hugo had seen photos of famous athletes and millionaires posing on the famous airship.

  But from what Hugo could see, most people looked like rich businessmen and fancy-looking ladies.

  No Yankees, that was for sure.

  As he scanned the room, he caught sight of a group of uniformed men standing near the exit. They were Nazi soldiers, the men closest to Germany’s leader, Adolf Hitler. Each man wore a black leather coat with a bloodred band on his left arm. The armbands were decorated with a hooked black cross — a swastika, the symbol of the Nazis.

  Hugo shuddered.

  Hitler and his Nazis were dangerous, Mom and Dad had said, even evil. And the sight of those men gave Hugo a bad feeling — dark and shadowy — like when he saw hippos lurking in the waters of the Thika River near their farm. The hippos looked tame, with their blubbery bodies and fat noses. But in a blink, the four-ton monsters could explode out of the water and chomp you in half.

  Hugo was so deep in his frightening thoughts that at first he didn’t notice that Mom and Dad were now standing right in front of him.

  Mom smiled at the sight of Gertie sleeping so peacefully.

  “The inspection took forever,” Dad said. “I’m surprised the guard didn’t look inside my ears.”

  “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” Mom said to Hugo. “You’re pale as a ghost. You look like you just found a cobra in your bed.”

  Hugo’s mind swung from Nazis to the giant snake he’d discovered curled up on his pillow not so long ago. The startled serpent had flared its hood and bared its gleaming fangs as it prepared to leap up and bite Hugo on the neck.

  Luckily, Panya had come to the rescue. The little mutt had a bark so strange and ferocious that he could scare away the most fiendish beast.

  “Garoo, garoo, garoo, garoo!”

  Even now Hugo could still picture the petrified snake as it practically flew out of the room.

  “I’m fine,” Hugo said. “I just wish we were already in New York.”

  “Me, too,” Dad said. “But we should try to enjoy this voyage. I think it’s going to be unforgettable.”

  Hugo didn’t doubt that was true.

  They followed a line of passengers onto the airfield. It was drizzling, but the cold rain hadn’t stopped a crowd of people from gathering to watch the zeppelin take off. It was like a party, with photographers snapping pictures and a band playing brassy German tunes. The loud music woke up Gertie, who stared in amazement at the Hindenburg. It loomed over them like a silver mountain.

  A smiling man in a uniform stood in front of a metal staircase. The stairs led up into the belly of the airship.

  “Willkommen!” he said. “Welcome!”

  They walked up the stairs — and into another world.

  To Hugo, it seemed they had entered a fancy hotel from the future.

  They found their cabin, which was small and very modern. The sleek bunk beds were made with thick blankets and silky sheets. The sink and desk even folded up and down to make extra room. Hugo had never seen anything like it.

  They left their suitcases and coats in the cabin and did a quick tour of the two floors of the small passenger area. They peeked into the dining room. Long tables were set with white cloths and sparkling dishes and flowers that looked as if they’d just been picked from someone’s garden. Down the hall was the lounge. On the wall was a hand-painted mural of the world, with zeppelins zipping across the sky.

  Hugo wanted to explore every inch of the passenger area. But it was time for the zeppelin to take off. And so they joined a small group of passengers standing along a row of windows. The windows actually slanted down, so they had the perfect view of the action on the airfield. Muscled crewmen were unhooking the ropes that held the zeppelin to the ground.

  Hugo hadn’t noticed that someone had sat down next to him. It was a girl about his age. She had dark blond hair, round brown eyes, and a face scattered with freckles.

  “First time on a zeppelin?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Hugo answered. “What about you?”

  She paused for a few seconds, counting silently on her fingers.

  “It’s my eighth time,” she said.

  “Wow!” Hugo said with surprise.

&n
bsp; Eight times? This girl must be a millionaire! Each Hindenburg ticket cost $450, almost as much as a new car. Hugo guessed that Mom and Dad had used the rest of Aunt Sylvie’s money to pay for this trip.

  “I’m Martha Singer,” the girl said. “But call me Marty.”

  “Hugo.”

  “That’s my father,” she said, pointing across the room to a friendly looking man with puffy hair and round glasses. “He works for the Zeppelin Company. They own the Hindenburg.”

  Hugo’s mouth dropped open. “Your dad owns the Hindenburg?”

  “No.” She laughed, but not in a way that made Hugo feel dumb. “He just works for the company, in the American office in New York City. We go to Germany a few times a year.”

  “And you always take a zeppelin?”

  “We do,” Marty said. “And every trip I see something different. Last time, I got to see a whole family of dolphins. They leaped up out of the water when we flew over them.”

  “Maybe they wanted to hitch a ride on the Hindenburg,” Hugo said.

  “Who doesn’t?” Marty grinned.

  A warm feeling filled Hugo’s chest, like when he would sip hot chocolate on a freezing New York day. He tried to remember the last time he talked to a kid his own age. Their house in Kenya was surrounded by wilderness, and the nearest village was twenty miles away. Hugo hadn’t made any friends in Kenya, unless you counted the one-eared baboon.

  Hugo had the urge to tell Marty all about that baboon — and other things, too.

  But now it was Gertie’s turn to talk.

  She turned to Marty and smiled. “You’re pretty! You look like a cheetah.”

  This was one of Gertie’s games, to match a person to the animal he or she looked like.

  And Marty seemed very happy to be compared to a curious spotted cat.

  “Thank you!” she exclaimed.

  She narrowed her eyes and studied Gertie.

  “And you look like a gazelle with pigtails.”

  Gertie’s pale face lit up.

  Just then a man’s voice thundered over the loudspeaker.

  “Schiff hauf!”

  Up ship!

  The men on the airstrip let go of the anchor ropes and leaped backward, away from the zeppelin.