“Actually,” Stenny admitted, “I was never invited on a tour. I made the whole thing up.”
He thought Buzzie would jeer, but the other boy merely nodded, as if he understood. Then Buzzie asked, “Were you scared? I mean, when it blew up and all?”
“Yes,” Stenny said. “I was.”
At school Buzzie told the other kids that Stenny had witnessed the explosion. Suddenly Stenny was surrounded by people who wanted to talk about the disaster.
“What was it like?” Frank Grafius asked.
“I heard it was sabotage,” Bill Little broke in. “A Nazi spy blew it up.”
“Why would the Germans blow up their own airship?” Stenny said. “That doesn’t make sense.”
Bill shrugged. “It could have been an American spy. Nobody likes what the Germans are doing these days.”
Stenny remembered his aunt’s letter saying that Jews were only allowed to sit on certain benches. The spidery swastika symbol flickered through his mind. The Nazis seemed more menacing now—they weren’t just a group of bad guys on a movie serial.
Frank said, “What do you think happened to the Hindenburg, Stenny? You were there.”
“I don’t know,” Stenny replied. “It just...exploded.”
The others stared at him in awe.
When the bell rang and they all went to their seats, the teacher asked Stenny if he wanted to talk about his adventure.
“Maybe tomorrow,” Stenny muttered.
At lunchtime, Buzzie asked Stenny to play kickball with him and the guys. Stenny had never been so popular. Everyone acted like he was a big hero. But he didn’t feel like a hero. He felt like an ordinary boy. He had seen the crash all right. But he had also seen the victims.
When school was out, Buzzie said to him, “Let’s go out to the field and see what’s going on.”
Stenny had thought he never wanted to visit the air station again. But he realized the landing field was part of their lives. “Okay, but I have to ask my mom first.” His mother gave permission but warned the boys to stay out of the way.
The road was still thronged with cars. Every news report seemed to bring more onlookers. At the fence the boys joined the crowd of spectators. Investigators pored over the rubble. No one else was permitted inside. A man showed them a charred scrap of fabric. “This is part of the hull. I got it before the guard threw everybody out. There’s not much left.”
Stenny grasped the fence, pressing his face against the metal wires. He stared at the skeleton of the Hindenburg. The only recognizable part left was a tail fin. The half-burned swastika pointed toward the clear blue sky. A mockingbird sang in the treetops. The grass and piney woods smelled fresh after yesterday’s storm. It seemed hard to believe that a terrible tragedy had taken place.
The Hindenburg was gone forever. But the Third Reich, the people behind the swastika, still ruled Germany. An ominous power lurked in that stark, black cross. Something—Stenny didn’t know what—was going to happen. They would have to face whatever lay in the future. And they would have to be brave. Even ordinary people, like him.
As Stenny turned away from the fence, he decided he would take his model to school tomorrow. He would tell the class all about the greatest airship in the world. Maybe his teacher would hang it in one corner of the classroom. That way, no one would ever forget the Hindenburg. Tonight, though, he would write to his cousin Franz in Germany. He had a lot to tell him.
Afterword
On its final flight, the Hindenburg carried ninety-seven people, sacks of mail, airplane parts, a lady’s dress, two dogs, and three partridge eggs.
Thirty-six people died in the crash: one ground crewman, thirteen passengers, and twenty-two airship crewmen, including Captain Lehmann. The officer who piloted the airship this trip, Captain Pruss, survived. There were a total of sixty-two survivors.
The cause of the crash remains a mystery. Before the voyage, there were threats that the Hindenburg would be destroyed on American soil. But no bomb fragments were found in the wreckage. Other theories include St. Elmo’s Fire, static electricity, or an electrical failure on board the ship. Wherever it came from, a spark was necessary to ignite the hydrogen inside the hull.
The disaster brought an abrupt end to the age of rigid dirigibles. The U.S. Navy’s airship operations had a poor track record. The rigid dirigibles Akron,Macon, and the Shenandoah had all crashed, killing many people. After the Hindenburg incident, the Navy switched to blimps, nonrigid airships kept aloft by helium, a safer, nonflammable gas.
Fire in the Sky Page 4