When my father was a very young man, he joined the Navy in 1952 and trained as an aerographer’s Mate (weatherman?). Part of his time in A-school was in Lakehurst. He told me once he spent Christmas eve on duty with one of the enlisted men who survived in the forward part of the Shenandoah. I got the impression that this man was a Senior Chief or Master Chief at that time. Any idea who that might have been? Unfortunately, my father is long gone or I would ask him again.

My great uncle was Chief Boatswain’s Mate Mark Donovan, USN, a survivor of the ZR1 SHENANDOAH crash. As a young child, I did not know of his harrowing experience through that late summer storm and resulting crash. I often stayed with him while my mother was shopping, and my only memory was the rope knoting/handling he taught me. He never recounted the incident ( like many men that LATER lived through WWII – stayed silent about their experience ).
More recently, after my retirement, did I start learning the only link to this subject I had been made aware of (and possibly an erroneous link). I’d heard a partial family story that my paternal grandfather (30 yr USN career) had been assigned to the ground crew for the landing of the Hindenburg on her fateful demise. A vacation trip to the Navy Lakehurst Museum to research this was not fruitful in that respect.
However, the next day at the town of Lakehusrt’s Historical Museum (https://sites.google.com/site/lakehursthistoricalmuseum/ ) I found a book,
The SHENANDOAH SAGA, by Thomas Hook, that described – not my grandfather’s connection with air ships, but my uncle Mark Donovan’s experience 12 years earlier !! The book gives a good summary of the airship, the crew’s experiences, and photos of the downed two halves of the wrecked SHENANDOAH, and some of the resulting investigation controversy.
It was interesting to learn at the time of the Navy airships – the cost of Helium was about 50 times that of Hydrogen, but the prolific American petroleum industry was a ready suppler (as Helium is a by-product of oil/gas drilling).
The books narrative refers to my uncle Mark numerous times and has quite a few photos that include him. The SHENANDOAH SAGA went a long way at filling in the remarkable story of my uncle (and 43 others).
(It would be terrific if the Navy Lakehurst Museum could order some reprints of that book, both for the related families interest, and to keep the story of this remarkable event alive for history.)
We are very grateful for this “blog” to help share similar stories and keep the the SHENANDOAH’s saga ALIVE.

My uncle Frank Peckham was a crew member who survived the crash also. And later had to give an account of what happen which did not sit well with the public as to what caused it to happen. He was a great man soft spoken but he could only tell the truth.