Snakebitten

XXIV

Graf von Zeppelin died suddenly in 1917. At the end of the First World War DELAG passed to his nephew Graf von Gemmigen, Alfred Colsman the Chief Engineer of DELAG, Dr. Hugo Eckener, von Zeppelin's protege (his Doctorate was in the new, exotic field of psychology), and Captain Ernst Lehmann who was Chief Pilot of DELAG and one of the few surviving War Zeppelin commanders of the war. A power struggle ensued over the future of DELAG, Von Gemmingen was forced out, and Colsman became a swing vote between Eckener and Lehmann, Colsman liked Eckener better but Lehmann was the more forceful man.

Eckener announced immediately that DELAG would begin building new airships and would resume passenger service, and did, between late 1918 and mid-1921. But DELAG's plans always seemed snakebitten.

Bodensee, "Lake Constance" (LZ-120), on a scheduled passenger flight in the very early 1920s. She was the first airship to sport the "elongated football" shape that made this fourth-generation airship more aerodynamic. After 1921, Bodensee went to Italy, where she was renamed Esperia. She had an undistinguished Italian career

 

In 1919, DELAG launched Bodensee ("Lake Constance") (LZ-120) and Nordstern ("North Star") (LZ-121). They were revolutionary ships, having the aerodynamically-improved shape of oblate spheroids rather than the sausage or pencil shapes of earlier airships. They were amazingly successful.

During this period, Ernst Lehmann secretly planned a transatlantic flight, an idea Eckener thought was politically unwise. When the Allied Control Council (effective rulers of postwar Germany) heard of Lehmann's plans, it seized the entirety of DELAG's fleet and divided it up between the British, French (Nordstern went to France and was renamed Mediterranee), and Italians (Bodensee went to Italy and was renamed Esperia).

Lehmann's planned transatlantic Zeppelin (still on the drawing boards) was promised to the United States.

Although this was disastrous for DELAG, the divvying up of the German airship fleet gave birth to the "Soaring Twenties" as they were called. Great Britain, France, the United States, Italy, and even the newborn Soviet Union began experimenting with airships.

The British built two airships based on German wartime models, R33 and R34. R34 made history when the ship successfully crossed and recrossed the Atlantic for the first time in July 1919, touching down in Mineola, New York.

R-34. The British airship was the first to cross the Atlantic Ocean in 1919. It is shown here at Mineola, New York after the crossing

The German-built U.S.S. Los Angeles (LZ-126 / ZR-3), built as a passenger ship, was the largest airship in the world when launched in 1924. She was 658.25 feet long and 98 feet in diameter. She was a helium ship, and the first airship to have accommodations within the hull. She set several distance records during her career. She flew a total of 4400 hours and a distance of 172,500 miles without a major mishap, although in 1927, her tail was not properly tethered down and lifted vertically into the air when struck by a wind gust. Men in the keel and the hull were injured, though none very seriously, in falls, and the crew in the gondola ended up in a heap. But the ship was undamaged. She stayed an active U.S. Navy vessel until 1933, when she was mothballed.

The U.S. Navy's most successful airship, U.S.S. Los Angeles (LZ-126).The Los Angeles was the first airship to be painted with anodized aluminum. It gave the ship an impressive silver sheen and became a hallmark of DELAG's later airships