Salt Lake Telegram | 1937-05-08 | Page 4 | The Hindenburg Tragedy

Th. Hindnburg Tragedy In ONE minute, from tha tint flash of flam aft to the crash of the tall of the Hind en burg st tha foot of tha Lakehuret mooring meat Thursday evening tha wont tragedy In all the history of air navigation wa enacted before specie tor ttrlckea dumb with horror and terror. The world' greatest dirigible fell only two hundred feet Crew and passenger numbered FT, of whom 14 passenger and 41 of tha crow survived. Ona of the heroic reeruer In tha ground party is among the dead. The known dead or missing number 12, with little hope that any of the missing miss-ing may be alive. Of the urvlvora, cruelly seared by tha flames, no on may know how many may yet die nor may the agony of their (ufferlng be Imagined. For aomo it may turn out to have been a grievous1 fnllforrirn thit they did not perish in th first moment of the awful dieaater. Writing under grueling preaeure, reporter at the scone furnished tha world with graphic account of thl dramatic event Tim wai not taken to embellish their (torlea with colorful writing. Simple recital of grim fort tufflred In a atory sUrrlng deepest amotion. Press cameramen, camera-men, notably Murray Becker of th Aasoctated Preee, have amailngly visualised It for newspaper news-paper readers. In no drgree exultant In th wake of an occurrence so lamentable and tragic, Th Telegram 1 Impressed by th facllltla at It command to serve lis i coders so swiftly, in word and picture, with complete coverage of great and Important new event. In It earliest mail and itreet edition full report were carried, accompanied by vivid photographa taken at tha instant of th dieaater and fashed across tha con tlnant with th speed of light by telephoto. Comment turn, then, upon significant phase of th explosion and crash which furnish hop and a degree of assurance that repetition of th disaster In future tlr travel may be averted. It must teem that no Investigation can deter mine beyond doubt what caused th explosion. Th euggssUon of sabotage la d Leered it sd here and in Germany. Engineering and construction, backed by peat performance) of th ship and of tha Graf Zeppelin, may ba assumed to have boon flawless, and tha condition of th wrecks must be such that no probe could disclose poaaibl defects. de-fects. When th ship we launched last year It wa remarked that an envelop of helium gaa surrounding sur-rounding her 11 balloon filled with inflatnmablo and explosive hydrogen would prevent Just such a mishap aa took place Thursday. Th United Statea ha a monopoly on helium. Such relatively rela-tively email nock aa other nation have are Jealously conserved, and war acquired at high cost In congress yesterday a measure to liberalize liberal-ize aupply of helium for nonmllitary purpose abroad was shaping. Dr. Hugo Eckener, (peeking for tha Zeppelin company, said helium will ba weed la th future and that. In hia opinion, no further voyage of dirigible will be mad with hydrogen for lifting power. Th United Bute navy ha successfully sailed Ita alrthlpa with helium, but only whra they were In commission and sine It ha been rigidly oon served. Ita availability In thl country coun-try i priceless military resource. If Oerman chemists have devised a process for It manufacture, manu-facture, it has not been revealed. If not. If a secret se-cret souroa of supply of th gas from a natural reservoir doea not exist, and if congress ahould doc line to part with any of our own, by Dr. Icke-Bet's Icke-Bet's ststament it would aaam that commercial operation of dirigible ia at an and. The sympathy of th American people goea out to th kin of all tha victims of th disaster. President Roosevelt ha tendered official con-dolencea con-dolencea to Chancellor Hitler and tha German peopla.