On Sept. 3, 1925, the airship Shenandoah ZR-1 — translated to “daughter of the stars” — crashed in three sections over Noble County, Ohio.
Designated by the U.S. Navy as an aircraft for use in long distance reconnaissance missions, the Shenandoah was one of five naval airships that sparked excitement within both the military and civilians alike.
Seen at the time as the future of aviation, these airships, however, had short and perilous careers.
This past Labor Day weekend, the airship’s crew was remembered at the National Shenandoah Monument in Ava, Ohio, for their contribution — and sacrifice — in the name of aviation.
German Zeppelins usher in airship era
During the First World War, America and its allies had taken notice of the German’s terrifying use of bomb-dropping Zeppelins over England.
In the early hours of Oct. 20, 1917, French aviators managed to force down the German Zeppelin L-49. Landing relatively intact, “the capture,” according to the Air and Space Museum, “of an intact Zeppelin provided an incredible wealth of information regarding the construction of the craft.”
In 1922, aeronautical engineer Starr Truscott wrote about the importance of this capture, stating:
“Among the information obtained during 1918 were sets of plans and descriptive booklets as made by the French from the German Airship L-49, which had been forced down intact at Bourbonne Les Bains on October 20, 1917. This was the first comprehensive information regarding the actual construction of a Zeppelin which had been obtained….As a result of the study of this information and that received from various other sources it was concluded that the surest method of constructing a successful airship would be to copy as closely as possible the L-49. The plans appeared to fairly complete and the information regarding the structure and materials comprehensive. It was accordingly recommended to the Secretary of the Navy that the construction of one rigid airship, in general a copy of the L-49, be approved.
This recommendation was approved on August 9th, 1919 by the Secretary of the Navy, and the arrangements to begin construction of what would be the USS Shenandoah was started immediately.”
The Shenandoah enters the scene
In the States, the 680-foot ZR-1 was in trials for airworthiness. Her maiden September 1923 flight marked the first airship to carry an American crew, and the first to use non-flammable helium.
The use of hydrogen was first considered, as it was cheaper than helium and a very effective lifting gas, but after a series of accidents with the highly combustible gas in 1922 and 1923, the Navy opted to use helium.
“After its christening in 1923,” according to the Air and Space Museum, the Shenandoah “went out on a series of short flights to both train the crew and test the utility of the ship as reconnaissance aircraft. This included practicing moorings at Lakehurst[airship base in New Jersey] as well as moorings with the US Navy’s first fleet airship tender USS Patoka, a converted Navy oil replenishment ship.”
The silver, sleek hull of Shenandoah made a first transcontinental flight to the West Coast in September 1924. Arriving at San Diego’s budding air station on North Island, the ill-prepared mooring crew let the rear gondola hit the ground, bending a vertical girder.
Repairs were made and within a week Shenandoah rose over San Diego Bay to join her battle fleet in military exercises off San Pedro, CA.
Shenandoah made a successful flight home to Lakehurst only to find that it was being sent out on publicity tours promoting the U.S. Navy’s airship program.
In the early hours of Sept. 3, “flashes of lightning lit the morning horizon. Shenandoah’s five Packard engines struggled and she slipped sideways over the hilly Ohio landscape. A powerful air current that thrust her upward at too great a speed — conditions no airship was designed to endure — captured the struggling sky giant,” write authors Rick Archbold and Ken Marschall in “Hindenburg: An Illustrated History.”
“Lansdowne didn’t wait for the plunge to begin, but quickly ordered the release of water ballast in hope of slowing the fall. She rose again when the updraft current caught the ship. Again and again she rose and fell. Navigation was pointless. The rigid structure was being twisted and wrenched by the force of the storm.”
The externally attached control gondola broke first first, taking Cmdr. Lansdowne with it. The stern section, carrying 22 crew, rose again to 2,000 feet, then leveled and floated to earth a half-mile from where the ship split in two. They survived with minor injuries.
Other members of the crew had a wildly different experience, with Lt. Thomas B. Hendley later reporting: “At the first nose dive I noticed that the air was unusually hot and sticky. But after turning and twisting to an altitude of about 7,000 feet we struck a current of cold air… After the ship broke, I clung to a girder until we hit the earth. We lifted again and drifted for a short distance and came down once more in the tree tops. We bounced and tossed about. The girder to which I was clinging snapped off several tree tops and realizing that my chances of being killed by being brushed against those limbs were just as good as by chancing a drop to earth, I let go and landed safely.”
The bow floated on until a local farmer fired his shotgun at the envelope, bringing others to safety.
Fourteen of the Shenandoah’s 45 airmen died. Despite this unfolding tragedy, it was, miraculously, a number far fewer than the fate that would meet its sister ships. The other four crashed not long after they were commissioned.
On the 100th anniversary of the crash, a commemoration took place at the National Shenandoah Monument, where guests recognized the section of Ohio State Route 78 near Sharon, Ohio, which was recently dedicated to the disaster.
Bold signage displayed in the rural farmland nearby marks the three sites where Shenandoah last touched the earth.
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