Zeppelin Around the World

"All aboard for Friedrichshafen, Tokyo, Los Angeles!" bawled a sergeant of Marines at Lakehurst, N. J., one midnight last week.

The Graf Zeppelin, steel blue in the floodlights, was trimmed to circumnavigate the globe. Marines, sailors and Boy Scouts relinquished the ropes which held her to earth. Up she nosed, and away, a steady-moving monster quickly lost in the darkness. Manhattan watchers heard her motors, saw her slummer through the murk. She circled the Statue of Liberty before heading to sea.

Company. Twenty-two passengers were aboard. Most active were Karl H. Von Wiegand. European director of William Randolph Hearst's Universal News service: Sir George Hubert Wilkins, Hearst-backed polar explorer; Lady Grace Drummond Hay, fastidious Hearst voyageuse; Robert Hartman, Hearst photographer; the U. S. Navy's Lieut.-Commander Charles E. Rosendahl, Hearst guest. Their duties were to report the popular and scientific details exclusively for Hearst and associated newspapers. Other passengers and the crew were forbidden to say a word or sell a picture until the Hearst group permitted them to do so. For exclusive news rights, Publisher Hearst paid a secret sum (approximately $200,000). Correspondent Von Wiegand had conceived the flight, arranged details of its stopovers at Tokyo and Los Angeles. He, Sir Hubert and Lady Drummond Hay were to take turns observing and reporting every day and night of the three weeks. She, "who is of a very reserved nature," insisted upon a cabin all to herself. She was the only woman aboard.

The Hearst group had tickets for the whole voyage. Other trippers included Joachim Rickard, Massachusetts-born Spanish correspondent, who was obliged to fight Hearst opposition to his passage; Lieutenant Jack C. Richardson, U. S. Navy observer; William B. Leeds, socialite playboy. Lieut.-Col. Nelson Morris, nephew of Ira Nelson Morris (Chicago meatpacker and onetime Minister to Sweden), had a ticket as far as Friedrichshafen.

Mail. Aboard were 50,631 pieces of mail, whose aggregate postal charges were $44,074.11. Of this Germany got $42,471.99, the U. S. $1,602.12.

Stowaway. A would-be stowaway, remained behind in the Lakehurst guardhouse. He, one Morris Roth, 18, plumber's helper, of Trenton, N. J., was caught crawling along a high girder in the Lakehurst hangar. He had a 175-ft. rope with him and had planned to slide down it to the top of the Graf Zeppelin. The covering of the airship is of fabric. He might have broken through and caused disaster when she was in the air. The stowaway who crossed from Germany to the U. S., one Albert Buschko, 19, Dusseldorf baker's apprentice, was sent home on the Hamburg-American liner Thuringia, ignominiously.

Thieves. While the rest of Lakehurst watched the departing ship, a shrewd thief entered the headquarters; building, stole $2,000 from an open safe. Other thieves took a safe containing $700 from a canteen, robbed public telephone booths.

Departure. Lady Drummond Hay: "We passed from a symphony of silver to golden glory as the lights of New York City scattered themselves beneath us like grains of golden Stardust, tracing patterns strange and fantastic, set with the jewelled brilliancy of ruby, emerald and topaz electric signs. . . ."

Von Wiegand: "Dr. Eckener, veteran air dog that he is, is in rare, fine humor--barometer of the spirit of the crew, the passengers and the giant ship itself. . . . He is bending over a chart on the dining room table, as unconcerned as any of the other officers."

Wilkins: "What can I write? I can do no more than skeletonize."

Playboy Leeds stayed up all night "to see the dawn over Nantucket."

First Day. Lady Drummond Hay rose first the next morning and went shouting through the passageways: "I was first up of all. I'm hungry. You'd better get up or you'll miss breakfast." Passengers Leeds, Richards, paid no heed, slept until luncheon. Sir Hubert Wilkins, always taciturn, apologized for his large breakfast appetite, settled down to read a book.

The French liner Rochambeau, then the U. S. liner Roosevelt glided into sight beneath, like shavings on a river. No one on the Zeppelin could hear the passengers' futile hails.

Lady Drummond Hay, in knickers and leather flying coat, "clambered squirrel-like" (Von Wiegand description) along the girders of the ship's hull. She carried a Boston Bull pup, who was cold and, she decided, lonesome. Sir Hubert Wilkins clambered with her. Her cloth cat mascot remained in her cabin.

Alexander H. Godfrey, Boston broker, a passenger, excited himself by wirelessing a stock-purchase order.

Second Day. The second night out the ship ran into low clouds, descended to 600 feet above the sea in order to pass under them, could not, so ascended to 1,000 feet. Brilliant cabin lights threw the silhouettes of passengers against the clouds. Passengers played with their shadows. Commander Eckener went to bed. So did the passengers.

Journalist Von Wiegand awoke towards daylight and ran out on the navigating bridge in his pajamas. He had "sensed immediately a thrill in the air." The ship was making 105 m.p.h. with the boost from a tail wind.

That night the Scilly Islands, then the English mainland hove into sight. Journalist Von Wiegand radioed: "Land. It is Land's End. It is England. We have crossed the Atlantic. It is one o'clock in the morning, 42 hours and 42 minutes after we left Lakehurst. . . . A peaceful Zeppelin--over England--the first since the War. . . . All day long we have been trembling with excitement."

Third Day. At Paris, drowsy tourists and blowsy workpeople heard a hum and saw the Graf Zeppelin in the morning sky. She soared around the city's centre, then wafted towards Friedrichshafen.

It was Germany's Constitution Day. Berlin authorities pleaded by wireless for Commander Eckener to have the Graf Zeppelin salute their city as it did Manhattan and Paris. But the day was also Commander Eckener's 61st birthday and he wished to celebrate it at home. So directly to Friedrichshafen he took his airship.

Shortly after noon Germany time, 55 hours after she left Lakehurst, the Graf Zeppelin landed. A multitudinous crowd on the ground, fences, poles, roofs and steeples screamed joyously. Passengers debarked quickly. Count Albrecht Montgelas carried a fat bundle. It contained 52 ears of golden bantam corn, bon voyage gift of Mrs. William Crapo Durant. He fed them to his comrades that evening.

Frau Eckener awaited her husband with a birthday cake, candles, homely gifts. Said she: "My very best present for him is to make sure that he can sleep undisturbed. He appreciates rest more than anything else."

Ferdinand Magellan, first world circumnavigator, required three years (1519-22) for his sailing trip. Author Jules Verne's fictitious "Phileas Fogg" required 80 days; Nellie Bly, New York World reporter, 72 days (1889); U. S. Army planes, 175 days, of which 15 were actual flying days (1924); John Henry Mears and C. B. D. Collyer, record holders, 23 days (1928). The Graf Zeppelin expected to fly twelve or 14 days, with four-day stops for fueling at Friedrichshafen, Tokyo, Los Angeles--in all, a few days more than three weeks. The Mears-Collyer dash cost them $29,507, or $14,753.50 each. Dirigible passengers paid $9,000 each.