Re: Oh the Humanity (LONG)

["Sam Hobbs" <samhobbs@mindspring.com>]

The event was the crash and burning of the German dirigible
Hindenburg in Lakehurst, NJ in 1937. The alt.quotations FAQ
has a rather lengthy article with much of the news
announcements quoted in context. You can read a nicely
formatted copy at the FAQ at:
Link to the FAQ index page:
http://www.mindspring.com/~samhobbs/alt-quotations/index.htm
l
Link to the quotation articles:
http://www.mindspring.com/~samhobbs/alt-quotations/quotation
s.html
The following is one long line (straight to the article
itself):
http://www.mindspring.com/~samhobbs/alt-quotations/quotation
s.html#ohthehumanity
or the whole article (with some suffering in format) is as
follows:
(Future WVU Professor Herb Morrison announces Hindenburg
Disaster)
The words radio reporter Herb Morrison spoke May 6th, 1937,
will forever be etched in broadcasting history. Morrison was
an announcer for Chicago's WLS radio station, whose anguish
was felt coast to coast as the Hindenburg, a German airship
filled with hydrogen, burst into flames before his eyes and
was destroyed in a matter of seconds.
When the Hindenburg arrived at the Lakehurst Naval Station
in New Jersey, it appeared to be just a routine story. The
airship had already carried over a thousand passengers on
ten round trips across the Atlantic.
Morrison smoothly described the scene as the huge airship
approached its mooring mast, then panic set in when the
Hindenburg exploded.
"It's crashing. It's crashing terrible. Oh, my get out of
the way, please. It's bursting into flames. And it's falling
on the mooring mast. All the folks agree this is terrible,
one of the worst catastrophies on the world. Oh, the falmes,
four or five hundred feet in the sky, it's a teriffic crasg
ladies and gentlemen. The smoke and the flames now and the
frame is crashing to the ground, not quite to the mooring
mast. Oh, the humanity and all the passengers."
After Morrison recovered from the initial shock of the
tragedy, he went on to calmly describe what he had
witnessed. The Hindenburg explosion killed 35 of the 97
people on board and one person on the ground. A cause of the
disaster was never discovered.
People across the country didn't hear Morrison's coverage of
the disaster until the next day because his report wasn't
broadcast live from Lakehurst. He and an engineer had been
experimenting with field recordings. Theirs was the first
recorded radio news report to be broadcast nationally by
NBC.
Herb Morrison was a native of Pennsylvania. He began his
broadcasting career at WMMN in Fairmont, West Virginia, and
went on to jobs in Chicago, New York, and Pittsburgh before
coming back to the state in the 1960s to help West Virginia
University develop a radio-television section.
Morrison retired from WVU and lived in Morgantown until his
death in 1989.
A more detailed transcript follows:
...in the rain, and if that is the case we're going to have
a mighty fine description of you because... of it for you
because the men will have difficulty keeping footing in the
sand, and especially since it's wet.
Now the structure is light and yet so strong in the
Hindenburg. From the ground as the ship passes we can see
the passenger quarters; they're located just about a third
of the distance back of the nose and just about a third of
the distance from the keel. They're sort of square in shape
and seem to have spanned the entire width of the ship.
There's two decks, A and B, A being the main one, and the
one where most of the passengers assembled during the
passing. Lining the sides of the deck are the observation
windows. Now they're slanted, so that uh, it would give
anyone in the interior a fine view downward. And no doubt as
the ship went over another time where people were looking
down at the great mass of humanity assembled here on the
field. A thousand people have come out to witness the
landing of this great airship.
Now there's a long wide counter inside the observation
section of the ship, and you can look down for the ground
below leaning on a table, and below the table you see a
relief map of the various air routes of the world, so as you
travel along in the Hindenburg, you can watch the progress
shown up on this map.
Deck A is the upper of the two decks, and to get to deck B
it's necessary for you to walk through a foyer, and down a
pair of stairs. There you find what is really a combined
smoking room and lounge. Passenger always thrills when
Captain Max Bluth or Captain Ernst Lehmann will take you a
trip through the giant airship.
So it's many sections, up and down along the aluminum alloy
girder over the catwalks which lead from one area to
another, and then you see a maze of bright metal girders
everywhere. And after a walk through the ship you're ready
to rest for you've covered a great amount of space and you
realize you have travelled a great distance.
Now they're coming in to make a landing of the Zeppelin. I'm
going to step out here and cover from the outside, so as I
move out would you stand by for a second.
[Faster, more excited]
Well here it comes, ladies and gentlemen, we're out now,
outside of the hangar, and what a great sight it is, a truly
one, it's a marvellous sight. It's coming down out of the
sky pointed directly towards us and toward the mooring mast.
The mighty diesel motors just roared, the propellers biting
into the air and throwing it back into a gale-like
whirlpool. No wonder this great floating palace can travel
through the air at such a speed with these powerful motors
behind it.
The sun is striking the windows of the observation deck, on
the eastward side, and flashing like glittering jewels on a
background of black velvet. And every now and then the
propellers are caught in the rays of the sun their highly
polished surfaces reflect surfaces of gold. The field that
we thought active when we first arrived has turned into a
moving mass of cooperative action. The landing crews have
rushed to their posts and spots, and orders are being passed
along, and last-minute preparations are being completed, for
the moment we have waited for so long.
The ship is ridin' majestically toward us, like some great
feather. Riding as though it is mighty good -- mighty proud
of the place its claimed in the world's aviation. The ship
is no doubt bustling with activity, frequency, orders are
being shouted to the crew, the passengers are probably
lining the windows looking down and ahead of them, [MOORING
NOW] getting a glimpse of the mooring mast.
And these fine flagships standing here, the American
Airlines flagships awaiting directions to all points in the
United States when they get the ship moored. There are a
number of important persons that's on board, and no doubt
the new commander, captain Max Bluth is thrilled too for
this is his great moment, the first time he's commanded the
Hindenburg, on previous flights he was chief officer under
Captain Lehmann.
It's practically standing still now, they've dropped ropes
out of the nose of the ship, and its been taken ahold of
down on the field by a number of men. It's starting to rain
again, the rain had slacked up a little bit, the back motors
of the ship are just holding it just enough to keep it
from -- it burst into flame! It burst into flame and it's
falling, it's fire, watch it, watch it, get out of the way,
get out of the way, get this Charley, get this Charley, it's
fire and it's rising, it's rising terrible, oh my god what
do I see? it's burning-bursting into flame, and it's falling
on the mooring mast and all of the folks agree that this is
terrible, this is one of the worst catastrophes in the
world, ohh the flames are rising, oh, four or five hundred
feet into the sky. It's a terrific crash ladies and
gentlemen, the smoke and it's flames now and the frame is
crashing to the ground, not quite to the mooring mast, all
the humanity, and all the passengers. Screaming around me,
I'm so -- I can't even talk, the people, it's not fair,
it's -- it's -- oh! I can't talk, ladies and gentleman,
honest, it's a flaming mass of smoking wreckage, and
everybody can hardly breathe... I'm concentrating. lady, I'm
sorry, honestly, I can hardly breathe, I'm going to step
inside where I cannot see it. Charley that's terrible. I, I
can't... listen folks I'm going to have to stop for a
minute, just because I've lost my voice, this is the worst
thing I've ever witnessed . . .
Ladies and gentlemen I'm back again, I've sort of recovered
from the terrific explosion, and the terrific crash that
occurred just as it was being pulled down to the mooring
mast it's still smoking and flaming and crashing and banging
down there, and I don't know how many of the ground crew
were under it when it fell, and there's not a possible
chance for anyone to be saved. The relatives of the people
who are waiting here ready to welcome their loved ones as
they came off that great ship... oh . . . are broken up . .
. They're carrying them in to give them first aid and to
restore them. Some of them have fainted and the people are
rushing down to the uh, burning ship the uh, ???partide have
all have gone down to see if they can extinguish any of the
blaze whatsoever but the terrible amount of hydrogen gas in
it just caused the tail surface broke into flame first, then
there was a terrific explosion, and that followed by the
burning of the nose and the crashing nose into the ground,
and everybody carrying back at breakneck speed to get out
from underneath it because it was over the people at the
time it burst into flame.
Now whether it fell on the people who were witnessing it, we
do not know, but as it exploded they rushed back and now
it's smoking, a terrific black smoke flooding up into the
sky, the flames are still leaping maybe thirty, forty feet
from the ground, the entire eight hundred and eleven feet
length of it. They're frantically calling for ambulances and
things, the wires are being, humming with activity, and I've
lost my breath several times during this exciting moment
here.
Will you pardon me just a moment? I'm not going to stop
talking, I'm just going to swallow several times until I can
keep on.
I should imagine that the nose is not more than five hundred
feet, or maybe seven hundred feet from the mooring mast. It
had dropped two ropes, and whether or not some spark or
something set it on fire we don't know, or whether something
pulled loose on the inside the ship, causing a spark and
causing it to explode in the tail surface. But everything
crashed to the ground and there's not a possible...
------
That's all
Sam