AWAKENED into vigorous protest at the startling revival in German military aviation, aeronautical experts all over the world were soon pointing out that too many other leading air forces had been sadly neglected, and indeed had scarcely improved in equipment since the end of the First World War. The day of the romantic fighter biplane, with its manoeuvrability, wire-braced varnished struts and bulky cowling-mounted machine-guns, was slowly coming to an end, but it was true that tradition died hard and the Hawker Furys and Gloster Gauntlets, the Fiat CR. 32s and Grumman Hawks lingered on as if determined to survive for ever. Outside observers contemplated with alarm the replacement for the Gloster Gauntlet in the R.A.F. of the Gloster Gladiator, for it had a performance inferior even to that of the latest German bombers, although in the event it proved to be the last of the British biplane fighters. The standard R.A.F. day bomber in service since 1930, the two-seater Hawker Hart, had a maximum speed of only 184 m.p.h., while the Handley Page Heyford night bomber, ungainly and inadequately armed with three Lewis guns, struggled along with a ridiculous bomb load at a mere 142 mp.h.
The French Air Force in 1936 boasted one good single-seater fighter type, the Dewoitine D. 510 monoplane, which had been successfully tested in the dusty arena of Spain, and preceded the excellent D. 520, to gain some distinction in the early summer of 1940. The bombers of the Armée de L’Air were mostly ponderous, under-powered machines with apparently dozens of imposing glazed turrets and very few defensive guns, although new streamlined types such as the Amiot 351 and Liore et Olivier LeO 45 were on the way. Even Japan, influenced for so many years by German designs, had just discarded the biplane; the latest Nipponese fighter, already in action over China, was the sturdy Mitsubishi 96 monoplane, the direct predecessor of Jiro Horikoshi’s outstanding A6M Zero-Sen, undoubtedly one of the best aeroplanes to be used during the Second World War. Italy, with an air arm supposedly at least as powerful as the Luftwaffe, continued to some extent to live in the past by continuing the development of the Fiat CR. 32 biplane which had already suffered the same disadvantages as the He 51s of the Legion Kondor when used in Spain. However, the new three-engined Savoia-Marchetti Sm. 79 bombers of the Regia Aeronautica were extremely modem in appearance, and were to form the backbone of Italian air striking power for almost a decade.
Fortunately for the people of Great Britain, the R.A.F. and the Air Ministry had watched with more than a casual interest the whirlwind rebirth of military aviation in the Third Reich, and, without any fuss, acted accordingly. The biplane-versus-monoplane controversy came to an abrupt end with a series of specifications sent out in 1934 and resulting in the appearance only two years later of some of the finest military aircraft in the world—all monoplanes. These included the Supermarine Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane single-seater fighters and the Vickers-Armstrong Wellington and Handley Page Hampden heavy bombers. Other new aircraft for the R.A.F. were the Fairy Battle and Bristol Blenheim light bombers and the Armstrong Whitworth Whitley, a rather ugly but efficient night bomber. All these machines were at least as good as the latest equivalent aircraft Germany possessed, and some were infinitely better. For instance, the formidable armament of the production Spitfires and Hurricanes—eight Browning machine-guns with a rate of fire of 1,200 rounds per minute—was so novel at the time that it aroused considerable doubts in the minds of men who still thought of aircraft armament in terms of twin Vickers guns and Aldis sights, but the destructive power of the R.A.F. eight-gun fighters proved to be a decisive factor when put to the test during the Battle of Britain.
Another aircraft, not very interesting at the time, but destined to be one of the most powerful weapons used against the Third Reich, was during this period flying in the U.S.A. The Boeing XB-17, the prototype of the famous B-17 Flying Fortress, was a large attractive monoplane bomber intended to operate from 20,000 to 25,000 ft., a height band then considered to be beyond the reach of fighters and anti-aircraft fire. Powered by four 1,000 h.p. Pratt and Whitney radial engines, the original Flying Fortress carried an insignificant bomb load and had a hopelessly inadequate defensive armament of four hand-operated.303 in. machine-guns in glazed streamlined blisters aft of the wings, with provision for a fifth machine-gun in the nose, but fortunately the basic design had tremendous possibilities. The graceful XB-17 of 1936, which seemed much too beautiful an aircraft ever to make a weapon of war, probably signified nothing to Hermann Goering and his air staff, who could never have visualised that the final B-17G as used in 1944 would have a withering fire power brought about by no less than thirteen.50 in. defensive machine-guns in chin, nose, dorsal, centre fuselage, ventral, waist and tail positions, and also be so heavily armoured that it could penetrate deep into the heart of Germany with devastating effect. The Heinkel He 111s of the Legion Kondor had proved that daylight bombing from the air could turn an undefended town into a shambles; in due course the Flying Fortresses of the U.S. Eighth Air Force would turn the dagger into a sword and exact a terrible vengeance.
But in the winter of 1936 General Wever was dead, and the long-range strategic bomber regarded as an unnecessary luxury by those in the Luftwaffe who followed him. His immediate successor, General Kesselring, and later the uninspired General Stumpf, considered that the Luftwaffe now needed a large force of twin-engined medium bombers, massed behind a spearhead of dive-bombers—the new Blitzkreig technique—and priority was therefore given to the mass production of Heinkel He 111, Dornier Do 17 (later Do 217) and Junkers Ju 87 machines. The German designers were encouraged to benefit from the great deal of information about horizontal and dive bombing that had been acquired during the first twelve months of the Spanish civil war, and in the light of this experience a specification was issued by the Reichsluftfahrtministerium for a medium bomber with a range of at least 2,000 miles and a speed of over 250 m.p.h. This specification, later to be fulfilled by the highly successful Junkers Ju 88, stated that the new bomber must be able to dive at a very steep angle; the influence of Ernst Udet and his supporters was at work again.
At least one man in the higher echelons of the Luftwaffe bitterly resented Udet’s unexpected popularity following upon the successful baptism of his dive-bomber brain-child. With the German aircraft industry rapidly expanding to place it on a war-productive basis, Erhard Milch, long established as a brilliant organiser, not without reason considered himself overdue for promotion; he was not to know that certain of his colleagues were working against him. Instead of a higher post, he soon found that Goering was gradually divesting him of the power he already had, relieving him of various routine but nevertheless important matters and placing others in command. When Ernst Udet was appointed director of the technical side and became responsible for future aircraft production, he gained a considerable opponent in the experienced Milch, who knew perfectly well that the uninhibited one-time fighter ace was totally unsuitable for such a responsible task. Despite the apparent success of the Junkers Ju 87, Milch suspected that the excitement over Stuka aircraft now raging like a whirlwind through Luftwaffe Headquarters was misplaced, and he blamed Udet for leading Goering astray in the first instance. That such a man could be promoted over his head appalled Milch; it seemed to him that Goering could not have made a more hopeless choice.
In fact, Hermann Goering never believed for a moment that Udet was the best man for the job, but he had sound personal reasons for plachig him in it. For some time, the stout, jovial commander-in-chief had been suspicious of Milch, and recalling his reputation as an ambitious organiser, had decided it was time to replace him with someone less likely to covet his throne. While it is quite possible that Milch—who openly criticised Goering on more than one occasion—hoped one day to thrust his commander out of office, the higher ranks of the Luftwaffe were seething with jealousies and intrigues calculated to blacken the character of any man whose ability might lead to rapid promotion. Goering, well aware of his own inefficiency in air staff matters, turned a ready ear to all rumours and chose to believe that he could secure his position by surrounding himself with men who shared a similar weakness. In doing so, he disregarded the fact that he was sowing the seeds of a greater discontent that sooner or later would bring confusion and disaster.
Meanwhile, as the extremely modem Luftwaffe visualised by the German air staff in 1933 gradually became a reality, it emerged as a “bombing” air force, a strictly offensive weapon with the emphasis placed on speed and striking power. The Heinkel He 111 and Dornier Do 17 types in production during 1937 were very fast and had proved their bombing efficiency when used in Spain, but they lacked the range necessary for destroying industrial targets in a possible global war. The Achilles’ heel of the Luftwaffe lay in the fact that it was arming only for a European war of limited duration. In direct support of advancing ground forces, the German bombers had the ability to pin-point military objectives quickly and with devastating force, but they were incapable of waging a long offensive against an enemy country and thus gradually reducing resistance and weakening civilian morale. This short-sighted policy, utterly at variance with the views of the brilliant Italian general, Giulio Douhet, who had long ago stated that a modem war could no longer be limited to order and that it was impossible to devise an effective defence against the long-range bomber, was dictated to a great extent by Adolf Hitler. The Fuehrer had no intention of waging a long and exhausting struggle against increasing odds, and his plans called for a series of lightning offensives calculated to overthrow Europe in the shortest possible time.
During those tumultuous years that preceded the Second World War, with the voice of Hermann Goering loudly proclaiming that Germany demanded equality in the air and the menacing thunder of the new Luftwaffe increasing in volume from East Prussia to the Rhine, the continuing achievements of that most successful of all lighter-than-air craft, the Graf Zeppelin, seemed after all to be of only minor significance. Nevertheless, the greatest European exponent of the airship, Hugo Eckener, was still hard at work in the friendly solitude of Lake Constance, looking ahead, as always, into the future and seeking to make a dream come true. No longer the adventurous, inspired young man who had seen such famous commanders as Mathy and Strasser take their Zeppelins out into the wind and rain over the North Sea, Eckener remained as determined as ever to build a transatlantic airship, a splendid passenger liner of the clouds that would be a true successor to the Graf Zeppelin. Lack of funds, the everlasting problem that had haunted Eckener for so many years of his life, was a hurdle crossed this time without any great difficulty, due mainly to unexpected government support in the form of Goering himself, who was quick to appreciate the publicity value to the Third Reich of a second highly successful German airship. Acting on his orders, the Reichsluftfahrtministerium contributed large sums of money for the construction of what turned out to be the last and most beautiful of the Zeppelin dirigibles, but the price that had to be paid for the government assistance was a hard one for an individualist like Eckener. Slowly but surely, the vast bureaucratic machinery of the Air Ministry overwhelmed him, until with the founding of the German Zeppelin Line by Goering in 1935, much of his original influence had been carefully whittled away.
Eckener took the changes in his administration with a studied calmness that amounted almost to contempt. As a man of peace, he had always disliked the rise of National Socialism and all it meant to Germany, but the end more than justified the means; without financial resources, it would have been another long and weary battle against hopeless odds, and he had a feeling that time was no longer on his side.
For over a year the new airship LZ. 129, later named the Hindenburg, took shape on the shore of Lake Constance. Eight hundred feet in length, with a gas capacity of 7,000,000 cubic ft. and powered by four Daimler-Diesel engines that developed 4,400 h.p., the new dirigible was obviously superior to the smaller Graf Zeppelin, proving yet again that Eckener’s unswerving faith in a new design had been justified. Now, at last, the passenger flights to America could be resumed, and the work of almost a lifetime fully rewarded.
With the construction of the Hindenburg almost at an end, Eckener travelled to the United States and outlined to President Roosevelt his plan to carry out at least ten scheduled flights a year between Germany and America. Somewhat doubtful at first, the President was encouraged by Eckener’s obvious sincerity and enthusiasm, and finally gave permission for the transatlantic service to begin, allocating Lakehurst air station as the American terminal. When all the necessary arrangements had been completed to his satisfaction, Eckener returned to Europe and on a fine March day in 1936 the Hindenburg took the air and passed gracefully over the waters of Lake Constance for the first time.
After all the trials had been successfully carried out, the new dirigible was soon in service with the Graf Zeppelin on regular passenger flights to America. The Hindenburg proved beyond a doubt Eckener’s belief that it was technically possible to build the perfect transatlantic airship; it was spacious, comfortable, and highly popular with passengers and crew, and the fact that it boasted a cruising speed of only 86 m.p.h. did nothing to lessen that popularity. The rapid development of the aeroplane had for years been a devil at Eckener’s heels, but in 1936 it seemed that the high-speed mailplanes and multi-engined airliners effortlessly circling the world had not completely replaced the airships, despite the long record of failures with lighter-than-air craft, tinged only occasionally with the brightness of success.
Yet even the splendid Hindenburg was doomed. On the evening of 6th May, 1937, a day of gusty, stormy weather over Lakehurst, the gleaming silver airship arrived at her American terminal as a light rain was falling, and began the normal landing procedure, flying north into the fairly strong wind and gradually losing height. The many watchers on the ground who had come to welcome the arrival saw the nose of the Hindenburg abruptly swing around as the wind changed direction, and, still perfectly under control, the airship turned neatly towards the landing mast. Then, at a height of 200 ft., the Hindenburg drifted gently with reversed engines and the land lines were thrown.
In that moment, when the land lines actually touched the ground, a tremendous explosion took place inside the Hindenburg, setting the whole stem of the airship ablaze. Burning fiercely, the stem dropped almost immediately, and the stricken Hindenburg reared up at an acute angle, allowing the flames to roar along the full length of the hull until they erupted out of the bows. In less than a minute the watchers on the ground were confronted with an appalling sight as the Hindenburg became incandescent and collapsed, burning from end to end with the intense, white heat of ignited hydrogen gas.
Of those on board the Hindenburg that tragic day, sixty-five people miraculously escaped, and thirteen passengers and twenty-two members of the crew, including the commander, lost their lives. When Eckener arrived at Lakehurst, nothing remained except a tangled heap of blackened girders to show that on the now desolate and smouldering earth he saw before him the last and greatest of the Zeppelin airships had come to such an abrupt and terrible end; yet there had to be a reason for the disaster. The investigation that followed brought evidence to indicate that the tight turn which the Hindenburg had made on landing probably strained the long hull, wrenching a bracing wire out of position. The wire had then lashed back, cutting open a gas cell near the stem and allowing the hydrogen to stream out and escape through the outer envelope of the hull. With the storm overhead creating a high degree of atmospheric electricity, contact with the ground by the wet land line brought a spark, which in tum ignited the escaping gas at the stem. Seconds later, the Hindenburg was a gigantic torch, consumed by the mixture of hydrogen and diesel oil that could so easily bring disaster.
The funeral pyre at Lakehurst was the end of everything for Hugo Eckener and his beloved Zeppelins, just as the R. 101 tragedy had finally brought airship development to a close in Great Britain. The Graf Zeppelin lingered on as a symbol of past glory until soon after the outbreak of war, when the Reichsluftfahrtministerium recalled the vast amount of valuable aluminium that was going to waste and gave orders for the airship to be dismantled in order to recover it, together with the LZ. 130, a sister ship to the Hindenburg that had been under construction at Friedrichshafen since 1936. At about the same time, the vast new Zeppelin Line hangar near Frankfurt was destroyed.
As for Eckener, broken by misfortune and then disillusioned by the war, he died on 14th August, 1954, at the age of eighty-six, a tired old man whose life’s work had brought little reward except the friendship of Count Zeppelin, Heinrich Mathy and all those others who, like himself, had dedicated themselves to a cause fated always to lead them no further than the brink of success.