The Hindenburg Milestone

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It is, perhaps, appropriate that a milestone anniversary for the Hindenburg disaster comes less than a month after a milestone anniversary for the Titanic disaster.

In April, of course, we observed the centennial of the sinking of the Titanic. Twenty–five years later, on this day in 1937, the German airship Hindenburg met a fiery end as it tried to land in New Jersey.

Everyone knows the story of how the Titanic was regarded as unsinkable before it struck an iceberg on its maiden voyage and sank to the bottom of the North Atlantic. I don't know if people felt the same way about the Hindenburg in 1937 — if there was a widespread conviction that the Hindenburg would arrive safely at its destination.

Perhaps there was. The Hindenburg had been flying for little more than a year, and it had been used for propaganda purposes at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. It had crossed the Atlantic earlier in the year and was making the first of 10 round trips between Europe and the United States.

The Hindenburg set no speed records. Even in their relatively developmental state 75 years ago, airplanes could still get people across the ocean faster than airships like the Hindenburg — but airplanes couldn't come close to matching the creature comforts available on the airships. The people who traveled in them were paying for amenities, not speed — and they paid a lot for the privilege.

They were not unlike the first–class passengers on board the Titanic, who were pampered in every imaginable way. The Titanic could cross the ocean as fast as or faster than any other ship on the sea, but a huge ship like that simply couldn't slither through an ice field the way a smaller ship could — and that was its fatal flaw.

No conclusion has ever been reached about the cause of the Hindenburg disaster — but it seems to me that a significant contributing factor would be the fact that, in the 1930s, highly flammable hydrogen was the fuel being used on airships. In the last half–century, airships have relied on the far less flammable helium.

That might not have made a difference, though, if the talk of sabotage that has persisted for 75 years is true. Surely, a saboteur would have found another way to accomplish his objective, and the landing that was scheduled for 75 years ago tonight would have been far too tempting to pass up. Heavy preflight publicity virtually guaranteed that the Hindenburg's arrival would be extensively covered by the press of the day.

In spite of the huge fireball that erupted, more than half of the passengers and crew survived. Proportionately, that was far better than the survival rate on the Titanic although the passenger manifest on the Hindenburg was far shorter.

There was never a chance that the fatality rate on the Hindenburg would come close to that on the Titanic. The numbers just weren't there.

Part of it may have been the shock value that comes from an outcome that simply isn't possible. And part of it may have been the experience, the immediacy of seeing it happen on newsreels.

Whatever it was, the Hindenburg deserves its spot in history the same as the Titanic disaster 25 years earlier — or the Challenger disaster nearly half a century later.

A Great Moment in American Journalism

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A great moment in American journalism occurred 100 years ago in the aftermath of the sinking of the Titanic.

Unfortunately, it is probably one of the lesser known stories surrounding the famous shipwreck.

Carr Van Anda, managing editor of the New York Times, scooped the competition largely because he put two and two together and concluded that the reason there had been no more communication from the ship was that it had sunk, and he insisted on publishing that information.

The problem was that the White Star Line, the shipping company that owned Titanic, had reported via wireless transmissions that the ship had, in fact, encountered some problems with ice, but it insisted the ship had not sunk.

But Van Anda had seen the wireless transmissions from the ship and noted the fact that there had been no more transmissions after the early morning hours of April 15. He was convinced that meant the ship had gone down, but, since Van Anda was nearly 1,000 miles away from the scene of the disaster, other newspapers were reluctant to dispute White Star's account. Van Anda, of course, did not have the benefit of modern technology; he went with his gut instincts.

It was a real gamble, a roll of the dice, and if White Star's version of events had been true, and it turned out that the reason there had been no more transmissions from Titanic was due to equipment failure or something like that, we might be commemorating the centennial of "Van Anda's folly" and not the sinking of the Titanic.

It was a few days before he was proven correct. The ship that brought the Titanic's survivors to New York was delayed by various factors (including the same ice that had brought down Titanic) and didn't get there for three more days — and it "was under a virtual news blackout," writes James Barron of the New York Times. "Its telegraph operators were not distributing messages from newspapers seeking information about the Titanic."

But when it finally arrived, the story was told — and Van Anda was vindicated.

The Tragedy of the Titanic, a Century Later

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From time to time, man persuades himself that he has conquered nature.

A century ago tonight, the passengers on the Titanic's maiden voyage probably believed they were safe from any danger. Whether that really was how the people of that time saw it or not, Titanic came to be known in popular lore as unsinkable — even though it had sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic.

But that reputation for being unsinkable, reports Rosie Waites of BBC News Magazine, "is perhaps the biggest myth surrounding the Titanic" — according to Richard Howells of Kings College London, who calls it "a retrospective myth." Sort of like the Camelot characterization of the Kennedy years that arose following the assassination, I suppose.

If the people of 1912 really did believe Titanic was unsinkable, their faith proved to be misplaced as the great ship sank after striking an iceberg in the North Atlantic only minutes before midnight on April 14, 1912.

Everyone knows that story, I guess. It's one of the great "ooops" stories — and certainly one of the great tragedies — of all time. More than 1,500 people lost their lives.

The great tragedy of Titanic, as Chris Berg writes for The Wall Street Journal, is that the "ship of dreams" had a nightmarish flaw that was created by regulations of the time, regulations that were followed to the letter by the White Star Line but which proved to be wholly inadequate.

That flaw was in the number of lifeboats on board, and that number was based on regulations that were "written for a different era and enforced unthinkingly."

It is, asserts Berg, "the most iconic regulatory failure of the 20th century."

As Berg writes, "There were a host of other failures, accidents, and mishaps which led to the enormous loss of life," but the lifeboat capacity is a glaring one reduced to cold, hard numbers: There were more than 2,200 people on board, and the lifeboats, even when filled to capacity, could only accommodate about half.

Unfortunately, many of the lifeboats were allowed to leave the ship with empty seats. Consequently, more than 1,500 people perished.

"From the moment the Titanic scraped the iceberg," Berg writes, "the casualties were going to be unprecedented." But, obviously, more modern appraisals of the needs of seagoing vessels could have limited those casualties.

Titanic was a prescient name, in many ways, I suppose. Surely, the grandiose nature of the name contributed mightily to the ship's image of invulnerability.

And, when it sank, the loss of life, the reporting of the catastrophe and the ramifications were, indeed, titanic.

For a long time, it was thought that Titanic was too far below the surface ever to be found. But, in the mid–1980s, Robert Ballard and his crew re–ignited a wave of Titanic hysteria with their discovery of the ship's remains some 2½ miles down.

But, as Andrew Wilson writes for the Smithsonian magazine, fascination with Titanic's compelling and tragic tale has never really gone away. It has just gone through "waves of Titanic mania."

"The public's appetite for information and details — accounts of suffering, bravery, self–sacrifice and selfishness — seemed insatiable" at the time of the sinking, Wilson observes.

That much was obvious from the first newspaper reports that screamed of the loss of life aboard the allegedly unsinkable ship. It was as if the people of the time refused to believe that they had been wrong about the great ship.

For days — weeks, even — subsequent newspaper headlines reminded readers of the number of casualties. I've seen such an insatiable fascination with such a macabre subject a few times before — for example, when the space shuttle Challenger exploded — but nothing that I know of (short of, perhaps, an act of national aggression, like the attack on Pearl Harbor) has had the staying power of Titanic.

To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the sinking, the movie based on the event, 1997's "Titanic," which won 11 Oscars, has been re–released in 3–D. Even though it has been nearly 15 years since that movie was released — and everyone already knew how the story would end when it came out the first time — it continues to get positive reviews and, as I understand it, pretty good box office numbers, too.

A commemorative cruise, with descendants of Titanic's passengers on board, set sail earlier this week with the intention of following the route Titanic took and being at the crash site for tonight's anniversary.

That's staying power.

Daniel Mendelsohn makes an interesting point in his article in the New Yorker, even if it is a point that was made by another (unnamed) historian: "It may not be true," Mendelsohn writes, "that 'the three most written–about subjects of all time are Jesus, the Civil War and the Titanic,' as one historian has put it, but it's not much of an exaggeration."

Now, in my studies of history, I have had the opportunity to study the story of the Titanic. That's something that many of those who saw that movie 15 years ago likely had not done, given that so many were in their early teens and were smitten with co–star Leonardo DiCaprio and saw the movie countless times simply to drool over him.

(Actually, as the Washington Post recently revealed, there are people out there — not necessarily teenagers, either — who do not know that Titanic struck an iceberg and sank a century ago.)

But I had read accounts of the sinking, and I was impressed with the attention to detail in the movie. The sets, the costumes and the facts were mostly correct. The Grand Staircase, for example, which played a prominent role in the movie, appeared to be precise in its re–creation.

Many of the people who saw the movie back in 1997 probably did not know the name of the man who captained the ship.

For the record, his name was Edward Smith, and it is acknowledged by just about everyone that he died in the disaster, but no one really knows how he perished.

Many historians claim he was seen on the bridge a few minutes before the ship sank beneath the waves. There are tales that he was in the ship's wheelhouse, others that he was in the radio room.

A heroic — although improbable — account holds that he saved a child's life, carrying it to a lifeboat before urging the surviving crew members to "[b]e British" and swimming off to die in the sub–freezing waters.

That, in fact, is probably how many of the Titanic's passengers and crew died that night. There was a popular misconception for a long time that many of the victims drowned when they were pulled below the surface in the wake of the plunging ship or trapped in its bowels, but the film actually helped set the record straight.

The frigid waters of the North Atlantic caused many of the victims to die of hypothermia or cardiac arrest. The upper portions of their bodies remained above the surface, thanks to the lifejackets they wore, but the cold water (reportedly 28° F) took their lives within a few minutes.

To be sure, some did go down in the sinking ship — and almost certainly died from the pressure well before the vessel came to rest on the sea floor.

I don't know if any passengers' remains are still entombed in the ship after a century. I doubt that any would have made it to the bottom in the initial sinking, given the pressure at that depth. But stranger things have happened, I suppose.

And there are all sorts of analogies to be drawn from the 100th anniversary of the Titanic tragedy and the withdrawal of Rick Santorum from the Republican presidential race or the dismissal of Arkansas football coach Bobby Petrino.

But even without those contemporary tales, the Titanic story seems to be alive and well in the 21st century.

"The Titanic has never been bigger," writes Joel Achenbach for the Washington Post.

I suspect that is true.

An Irony of Titanic Proportions

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Millvina Dean died today at the age of 97.

She was nine weeks old when the RMS Titanic left on its ill–fated voyage in April 1912. She was the youngest passenger on board and, consequently, the youngest survivor. And, with her passing, all the passengers on board the ship are now deceased.

Her father died when the Titanic sank. If his body was recovered, it was never identified. Her brother lived to be 82 years old, dying in 1992 — on the 80th anniversary of the sinking.

And, in the final irony, Millvina Dean died on the 98th anniversary of the day the ship was launched in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

(I suppose one of the most ironic stories involving Titanic has to be the one about stewardess Violet Jessop. Many people don't know that Titanic was one of three Olympic–class passenger liners owned by the White Star Line. Jessop was on board all three — the Olympic, the Titanic and the Britannic — when they met with disaster, and she survived them all. Titanic, of course, struck an iceberg. A few years later, Britannic struck a mine during World War I and sank. Olympic collided with another ship but didn't sink.

(Socialite Margaret Brown became known as the "Unsinkable Molly Brown" when she survived the Titanic, but I think Jessop deserved to be called "unsinkable." She died in 1971 at the age of 84.)

Dean had been in ill health in recent months and had been forced to sell many family possessions to pay for her medical care. Earlier this month, the stars and director of the blockbuster movie based on the tragedy joined forces to raise money to defray her expenses.

Only a few days ago, actors Kate Winslet and Leonardo Di Caprio and director James Cameron provided $30,000 that had been raised to help with her medical costs.

The fund that was to be used to help Dean with her expenses was known at the Millvina Fund. I've heard nothing about what the fund may be used for now.

Thoughts on 'T' Day

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"T" stands for a lot of things — "taxes," for example, and "tea," which inspired the "Boston Tea Party" protest and, in turn, inspired today's conservative tea parties protesting the government bailouts.

Today was chosen for the modern tea party protests because today is, of course, April 15. Income tax returns must be postmarked by this date.

Interestingly, today is also the 97th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, which was thought to be unsinkable before it departed on its maiden (and only) voyage. Another "T" word — one which may be appropriate ...

Because I think these tea parties are misguided and foolish.

Is it really necessary, at this stage, to point out that this country is facing the worst financial situation it has faced in three–quarters of a century? That unemployment grows by leaps and bounds with each passing month? That millions have been forced from their homes by foreclosure?

As Barack Obama observed only yesterday, ordinary citizens cut back on spending when times are hard. And when spending dries up, it contributes to a downward spiral. With demand for products down, most employers are more likely to cut workers than hire them.

And the virtual implosion of the housing bubble has made matters worse.

To give spending the temporary boost that it needs to get the economy moving again, it was necessary for government to get involved with the bailouts and the stimulus package.

It isn't the kind of thing that most of us, Republicans or Democrats, would have preferred. But these are — as I have observed before — unusual times, and unusual times demand unusual measures.

I'm inclined to believe that many of the people who planned to participate in today's tea party protests would like to go back to the days before the 16th Amendment, which imposed the income tax, was ratified in 1913.

But is that really practical? Nobody likes taxes, but they make it possible to pay for services that we all want and need.

In an ideal world, I suppose, people could keep every cent they make. But, before government began collecting income taxes, I guess fires had to be put out with neighborhood "bucket brigades." And I suppose law enforcement was left up to volunteer posses, many of whom were more likely to hang a suspect on the spot (as in "The Ox–Bow Incident") than wait for a legitimate judge to come to town.

And, before Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidency, there was no safety net for the less fortunate members of society — the unemployed and the disabled, for example.

Without taxes, how would we pay for things we take for granted, like trash collection? How would we pay for community parks and recreation programs that keep young people active during the summer months? Where would we get the funds that support public libraries and museums that enrich all our lives?

"Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society," said Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Fortunately, according to Robert Schlesinger of U.S. News & World Report, Americans don't mind paying taxes.

They seem to understand what Holmes was saying. And they seem to understand that times have changed. We're not living in prosperous boom times. We're living in a recession, and those who have jobs must share the burden of helping the economy get back on track.

Here in Texas, the largest of the so–called "red states," the tea parties have been getting a lot of attention. Matt Mackowiak issued a call for citizen participation in the Austin American–Statesman because "a not–so–silent majority of Americans increasingly feel as though their hard–earned dollars have been wasted on Wall Street and Detroit and there's no end in sight."

I have no evidence to back this up, but I think Mackowiak's "silent majority" simply doesn't like taxes — period. But, without them, I tend to think that our culture would sink more rapidly than the Titanic after it struck that iceberg in 1912.

Yesterday, in the Dallas Morning News, Mark Davis said the tea parties were a success before they began. That's kind of a hard sell for me.

Incidentally, my pastor has a different take on all this. He's a reformed coffee drinker who switched to tea around the start of the year, and he says he'll be glad to take any unwanted tea you may happen to have. He has some other insights on today's events, which you can read at his blog.

(He also makes a reference to the phrase "tea bagging," but he wisely leaves it up to readers to learn the slang definition for it on their own.)

It will be awhile yet before we know if Obama's economic strategy is working. But, considering that the stimulus package didn't receive congressional approval until February, the smart thing is to give it more time to have an impact.

Obama says we're already seeing some of the fruits of the legislation. I hope he's right.

The Galveston Hurricane of '08

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Destruction from the 1900 storm was so complete
the news didn't reach the outside world
until a message got out a couple of days later.

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I doubt that the hurricane of 2008 that struck Galveston in the early morning hours ultimately will be regarded as comparable to "The Great Storm" that devastated the city in September 1900.

"The Great Storm," as it is remembered locally, remains the deadliest natural disaster in American history.

(Why, you may ask, was the 1900 storm not given a name like Ike?

(The answer is simple. The National Hurricane Center did not begin naming tropical storms and hurricanes until 1953.)

In 1900, Galveston was a booming harbor city, the largest city in Texas. Some residents had urged the city to construct a seawall, but the proposal met a stonewall of local opposition. The logic at the time was: The city has been here for 60 years, and it's always gotten through storms with few problems. Why go to the unnecessary expense of constructing a seawall?

Thus, the city was left with little barrier between it and the waters of the Gulf of Mexico when the 1900 storm brought a surge exceeding 15 feet (at the time, the city's highest point was less than 9 feet above sea level).

To its credit, the city learned from its experience and constructed barriers to protect it from future storm surges. A seawall was no longer seen as an unnecessary expense.

So, in its way, I guess "The Great Storm" served the same purpose for Galveston that the Titanic served for oceanic travel. It led to necessary changes and the abandonment of foolish assumptions.

After the Titanic sank, passenger ship lines made appropriate changes to improve passenger safety, revising outdated regulations and mandating enough lifeboats to accommodate everyone on board. One of the most important changes was the total abandonment of the assumption of the unsinkable ship.

After "The Great Storm," Galveston learned that lives could be saved and property could be protected if the city invested in a seawall. And the city abandoned its assumption that just because nature hadn't subjected Galveston to anything that horrific in the past was no guarantee it would not do so in the future.

Although the surge from Hurricane Ike was predicted to be higher than the surge was 108 years ago, it probably won't prove to be as devastating as the surge that flooded Galveston in 1900, thanks to the seawall.

It's not possible to talk to anyone who lived through "The Great Storm" and therefore gain the insight of eyewitness comparisons.

Reportedly, the last living survivor died four years ago. She was said to be 116 when she died, which means she would have been about 12 when the storm hit Galveston. Census records suggest she was younger than that.

Whatever Hurricane Ike's eventual status turns out to be in local lore, its impact will be felt for a long time.

Ten years ago, I got a hint of what was coming — although I didn't know it (nor, I suppose, did I have any reason to).

I attended a James Taylor concert in Dallas, and Taylor performed a nearly half-century-old song about the 1900 hurricane called "Wasn't That a Mighty Storm?"

If you were to hear that song performed today — and if it didn't refer specifically to the year 1900 — you would think it had been written about the hurricane of 2008.

"The Great Storm" was, indeed, a "mighty storm." Between 6,000 and 12,000 people perished in the 1900 storm, and damage figures (in today's dollars) exceeded Hurricane Katrina. The 1900 storm is estimated to have been a Category 4, although the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale that categorizes such storms did not come into existence until more than 70 years later.

Hurricane Ike made landfall as a Category 2 — but it's safe to say that Ike was not a typical Category 2. It was really more of a freak. The wind strength may have been Category 2, but the storm itself produced an amazingly large storm surge, which posed the major threat to Galveston and other communities located along the western Gulf coast.

Certainly, there will be extensive damage to Galveston, which will be revealed as the remnants of the storm pass through today and daylight makes it easier to assess what has happened. At the moment, in the hour before dawn's first light, it's impossible to put a dollar figure on the damages or to estimate the number of casualties — although initial reports blame three deaths on the storm.

Area newspapers will be the best sources for information, but with power outages, local reports may be spotty for awhile:

• Science blogger Eric Berger has been monitoring the storm for the Houston Chronicle.


• Corpus Christi appears to have been spared the brunt of the storm. Nevertheless, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times devotes the front page of its website to hurricane coverage — including information that the Coast Guard is planning to resume its search this morning for a teenager who was swept off a local jetty on Friday.
  
  According to reports, a large wave crashed into the jetty, sweeping the teenager, who had been walking with a companion, into the water. The reports lack specific details, but it has been suggested that the teenager was rendered unconscious when the wave hit, and he may be presumed dead. I've seen nothing that mentions preparations for his possible rescue.
  
  His companion apparently was rescued.


• The Galveston County Daily News doesn't appear to have posted any updates since before the storm made landfall, but it will undoubtedly post information as soon as it can.

The storm left more than 4 million Houston-area residents without power early this morning. Estimates are that it will be "several weeks" before power is restored to all customers.