google map: https://www.google.com/maps/@-22.9267525,-43.7145084,1364m/data=!3m1!1e3?authuser=0&entry=ttu

Most films like this are reprints of newsreels sold for home viewing. If you unwind the first several feet of film you should be able to see if there is a leader indicating that it was a newsreel.

A great piece of history these is the first time i have read about these disaster .The reason for me searching for this information is that I found a 16mm 3 5/8 movie reel with hand writing label Hindenburg Disaster and cannot view it to see if the film is any good.Do not own that type of projector I was born two months later July 10 1937.

I don’t know what documentary you are referring to, but Hindenburg never “switched” to H2 because it never operated with anything else.

The Documentary says they switched to hydrogen when they added the 2nd deck for 20 people. It was lighter and able to carry the added weight.

This is true about boarding houses.My Polish immigrant grandparents married and lived in a boarding house for almost 15 years before they bought their first home. My dad was almost 9 years old, the youngest. My grandmother gave birth to 3 boys while living in the boarding house!. She actually bore twins with my dad, but his twin was stillborn. I think this had to be a rough life. I don’t know if they kept 1 room or rented 2. My grandmother returned to work when all the boys were in school. But, they dropped out after 7th grade. Each went to work. The oldest was in WWII and survived. The next 2 still enlisted when the war was over.

….and ocean liners offered their passengers freedom from being airsick!

Shenandoah
by May Folwell Hoisington

Down through the frosty air vibrating fell
A whirring sound insistent as a drum;
We listened, questing eyes upraised; the hum
Now tingling through us. Where the star-groups dwell
A newer constellation seemed to swell
In magnitude; a meteor become,
It swam above us. Awed at first and dumb,
We watched it, tranced as in a fabled spell.

Into the moohight swung the shadow-craft,
A form ante-diluvian of dread;
With reptile, shark-like tapering fore and aft,
It crossed the moon in sinisterdark shape.
This link you dreamed, Jules Verne, hail from the dead!
The chain is lengthening from man to ape.

[copyright MFH, may be used with correct attribution to May Folwell Hoisington]

It is so so sad with all those lives lost. 🙁

‘Queen Mary’ was the first ship to cross the Atlantic in under four days, when she claimed the ‘Blue Riband’ from her French rival ‘Normandie’ in 1938 (a record she would hold for the next fourteen years). Whilst the ‘Hindenburg’ was clearly faster, liners like ‘Queen Mary’ (& predecessors like ‘Mauretania’; ‘Aquitania’; ‘Olympic’ and ‘Majestic’) were beloved ‘ships of state’. There was already a ‘cache’ about passenger liners (their image appeared on everything from cigarette cards to biscuit tins), in terms of their size, speed and luxury accommodation, which never emerged for the airships. Whether it would have done in time, had the disaster at Lakehurst not occurred, is debatable. In the minds of many in Belgium; France and Great Britain (even before the rise of National Socialism), airships were still the detested ‘Zeppelins’ which had bombed and killed civilians during WW1.

On the mention of war, the use (in times of conflict) of either vehicle is also relevant. Liners had proved useful as merchant raiders; hospital ships and troop transports during WW1, and this was repeated in WW2. In July 1943, Queen Mary carried 15,740 soldiers and 943 crew (total 16,683), a standing record for the most people ever transported on one vessel. In fact, Winston Churchill credited the efforts of the ‘Queen Mary’ (& her sister the ‘Queen Elizabeth’ with reducing the duration of WW2 by a whole year. In contrast, whatever advantages the airship had had in WW1, no longer existed due to advances in aircraft design. The remaining airships (Graf Zeppelin and Graf Zeppelin II) were scrapped in March 1940.

An issue related to speed is punctuality, as customers want to know that a service will depart and arrive on time. There is no doubt that the weather could delay travel by air and sea. Fog delayed the arrival of the ‘Queen Mary’ in New York on her maiden voyage in 1936, just as a thunderstorm delayed the ‘Hindenburg’ in 1937. However, it appears that air travel was more affected. During the 1936 season, ‘Hindenburg’s’ ten westward trips took 53 to 78 hours and eastward trips took 43 to 61 hours, meaning she arrived up to a day late (adding 50% to some journey times). No doubt there were times when the ‘Queen Mary’ was delayed, but I’m not aware she ever docked more than half a day behind schedule.

With regard to ‘The Views’, just like the ‘Hindenburg’, the ‘Queen Mary’ could offer spectacular views. Not only from behind the large windows of the promenade deck but also from the boat deck above and sun deck above that. In addition, I believe the airship only offered views to either side, whereas the ‘Queen Mary’ also offered her passengers views fore and aft via her tiered decks and glassed in observation lounges. The Atlantic ‘was often grey, stormy, cold, and foggy’ and this applied to both forms of travel. An empty ocean, with waves rolling beneath an empty grey sky, is equally boring, regardless of whether it is viewed from the deck of a liner or an airship.

Finally, regarding reference — there is no contest. I’d choose travelling on the ‘Queen Mary’ every time.