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The Worst Air Disaster You've Never Heard Of
"In the early days of flight, airships were hailed as the future of war. Then disaster struck the USS Akron."
As two radio broadcasters, James Wallington of NBC and Ted Husing of CBS, competed for superlatives to describe the ship to rapt audiences around the nation, the guest of honor arrived—the First Lady of the United States, Mrs. Lou Hoover, Herbert’s vivacious wife. The lone dirigible that features in popular memory is the Hindenburg, Germany’s commercial airship that exploded in flames on May 6, 1937, over New Jersey, while radio reporter Herbert Morrison famously screeched “Oh, the humanity!” into his WLS-radio microphone. “The fleet and naval aviation are one and inseparable.” By the early 1930s, Moffett felt that the rigid airship was the future, and its primary role would be scouting—particularly if the crafts could be used to carry and launch airplanes, effectively turning them into skyborne aircraft carriers, with an extraordinary range for reconnaissance.
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