Sources and Credits
This website is a non-commercial, non-profit, educational resource for the public.
Acknowledgments
This website has been prepared with the assistance of the following airship historians who have kindly acted as an informal advisory board to review the site, offering thoughts and suggestions, and most importantly correcting errors when necessary. The author expresses his deep gratitude and appreciation for their assistance:
- Cheryl Ganz – Smithsonian Institution, Chief Curator, National Postal Museum
- Andreas Horn – Airship Modeler and Historian
- Dennis Kromm – Airship Historian and Consultant
- Dieter Leder – Zeppelin Mail Authority and Expertiser and Airship Historian
- Patrick Russell – Hindenburg Historian; Editor, Faces of the Hindenburg
- Rick Zitarosa – Historian, Navy Lakehurst Historical Society
Images
Many of the images on this site are items from my personal collection of unpublished aviation postcards, photographs, and memorabilia, since one goal of this website is to share images that might not otherwise be widely available to the public.
Text
The text on this site was written entirely by the author (and is protected by copyright), and is based on personal research using the primary and secondary sources which I believe to be the most accurate and reliable.
Primary and Secondary Sources
The archival primary sources on which I have relied are too numerous to detail on this page and are not easily available to the general public. But to allow readers to follow in my footsteps with published and generally available materials, these are some of the principal sources on which I have relied and which I believe to be the most definitive:
Contemporary Sources:
- Hugh Allen: The Story of the Airship (7th ed., 1931)
- Hugo Eckener: Die Amerikafahrt des “Graf Zeppelin”
- Hugo Eckener: Count Zeppelin, The Man and his Work
- Hugo Eckener: My Zeppelins
- Rupert S. Holland: Historic Airships (1928)
- Ernst Lehmann: Auf Luftpatrouille und Weltfahrt
- Ernst Lehmann and Howard Mingos: The Zeppelins
- P.W. Litchfield: Why Has America No Rigid Airships? (1945)
- C.E. Rosendahl: What About the Airship? (1938)
- R101 – The Airship Disaster, 1930 (1931)
Recent Secondary Sources
- William F. Althoff: Sky Ships: A History of the Airship in the United States Navy
- William F. Althoff: USS Los Angeles: The Navy’s Venerable Airship and Aviation Technology
- Harold G. Dick with Douglas H. Robinson: Golden Age of the Great Passenger Airships : Graf Zeppelin and Hindenburg
- John Duggan: LZ129 Hindenburg – The Complete Story
- John Duggan: Zeppelinpost LZ129 Hindenburg
- Henry Cord Meyer: Airshipmen, Businessmen, and Politics – 1890-1940
- Douglas H. Robinson: Giants in the Sky
- Douglas H. Robinson: LZ-129 Hindenburg
- Sieger-Verlag: Zeppelin Post Katalog
- Guillaume de Syon: Zeppelin!: Germany and the Airship, 1900–1939
- Dale Topping: When Giants Roamed the Sky: Karl Arnstein and the Rise of Airships from Zeppelin to Goodyear
- Gordon Vaeth: Graf Zeppelin, The Adventures of an Aerial Globetrotter
There are, of course, many other fascinating books about airships; some of these are highly reliable, while others were written with much less rigorous research.
- Douglas Botting: Dr. Eckener’s Dream Machine
- Douglas Botting/Time-Life: The Giant Airships
- Christopher Chant: The Zeppelin
- Wilbur Cross: Zeppelins of World War I
- Mike Flynn: The Great Airships
- Thom Hook: Flying Hookers, The Last Great Rigid Airship Adventure
- Thom Hook: Shenandoah Saga
- Hans Knausel: Zeppelin and the United States of America
- Ces Mowthorpe: Sky Sailors, The Story of the World’s Airshipmen
- J.E. Morpurgo: Barnes Wallis
- Norman Richards: Giants in the Sky
- John Toland: Ships in the Sky/The Great Dirigibles
For the beautiful illustrations by Ken Marschall, as well as the text, I need to make special mention of Rick Archbold’s Hindenburg, An Illustrated History.
I have, of course, also read Michael M. Mooney’s The Hindenburg and Adolph A. Hoehling’s Who Destroyed the Hindenburg, but each time I read Hoehling’s book I am amazed at how casually, carelessly, and misleadingly it was written.
For the material on Clara Adams, I have relied on her own writings, supplemented and verified by secondary sources, including Jon E. Krupnick’s Pacific Pioneers and his revised Pacific Pioneers – The Rest of the Story.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Dan,
Congratulations on a superb website! You’ve managed to popularize a forgotten part of history in an authoritative, yet fascinating on-line format that a reader can’t help but be drawn into. I especially appreciate the way you display a variety of unique, detailed photographs. Please add more, if possible.
My question: What is the name of the New Jersey scrap company that was given the job of smelting down the duralumin remains of the Hindenburg which were returned to Germany. What town was the company located in?
Many thanks,
Mike Roll
[Reply]
Dan,
this website is just fantastic! Have you ever thought about publishing it in a printed way? Or would there be copyright problems? If you ever do so, please keep me informed.
I’m a history student but rather of early modern europe – though airships are the only modern topic that gets my interest. For a longer time now I’m thinking about writing a book and your website gave me so many information and impetus. You’ve put all the information from several books in a nutshell – great work.
Keep on dooing such good work.
Greetings from northern germany, Sophie
[Reply]
Dan,
I highly recommend reading “Slide Rule” by Nevile Shute.
He worked with Wallis on the R-100 as a calculator. To relieve the boredom
of this job he took to writing at night. I believe his best known work is
“On the Beach.” cheers, Rip Tragle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevil_Shute
http://www.amazon.com/Slide-Rule-Autobiography-Nevil-Shute/dp/1889439185
[Reply]
This website is so amazing. I am doing a project on airships for my material science class and this website has proven to be the greatest help to me ever.
[Reply]
Dan (Airships.net) Reply:
May 13th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
@ Michael:
Thank you for your comments! I would love to know more about your project, and to see/read it when it is finished, if you would like to share it with me.
In any event, thank you for taking the time to post your comment, and best of luck with your work.
[Reply]
I’ve read both “The Great Dirigibles” and “The Giant Airships” for a research project I did on the Hindenburg. Tolland’s “Dirigibles” is one of my favorite books now, it allowed me to stand right next to Graf Zeppelin as his LZ-4 burned, I felt his pain as he knew his airship career was over, I was overjoyed when the people of Germany sent him 8 million Marks. I felt Nobile’s distress when the Italia crashed on the iceberg and most of all Dr. Eckener’s horror when he woke up to a phone call that May morning in 1937. I definitely recommend that book to anyone visiting this website. what a marvel!
[Reply]