Empires of the Sky Read online

  Copyright © 2020 by Alexander Rose

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  RANDOM HOUSE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: Rose, Alexander, author.

  Title: Empires of the sky: zeppelins, airplanes, and two men’s epic duel to rule the world / Alexander Rose.

  Description: First edition. | New York: Random House, [2020]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019024115 (print) | LCCN 2019024116 (ebook) | ISBN 9780812989977 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780812989991 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Aeronautics—Biography. | Zeppelin, Ferdinand, Graf von, 1838–1917. | Eckener, Hugo, 1868–1954. | Trippe, J. T. (Juan Terry), 1899-1981. | Airships—History—20th century. | Airplanes—History—20th century. | Aeronautics, Commercial—History—20th century.

  Classification: LCC TL539 .R635 2020 (print) | LCC TL539 (ebook) | DDC 387.7092/2—dc23

  LC record available at lccn.loc.gov/​2019024115

  LC ebook record available at lccn.loc.gov/​2019024116

  Ebook ISBN 9780812989991

  randomhousebooks.com

  Book design by Simon M. Sullivan, adapted for ebook

  Cover design: Pete Garceau

  Cover photograph: Imagno/Getty Images

  ep_prh_5.5.0_c0_r0

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Prologue: October 9, 1936

  1. The Aeronaut

  2. The Fever Dream

  3. The Government of the Air

  4. Aerial Navigation

  5. The System

  6. The Pivot

  7. A Wonderfully Ingenious Toy

  8. The Folly

  9. The Surprise

  10. The Equestrian

  11. Up into the Empyrean

  12. Conquerors of the Celestial Ocean

  13. The Flames of Hell

  14. The Miracle

  15. Kings of the Sky

  16. Zeppelin City

  17. The Wonder Weapons

  18. The Lucky Ship

  19. The High Priests

  20. Z-Ships

  21. Pirates of the Air

  22. China Show

  23. The Beginning or the End?

  24. Bringing Back the Dead

  25. The Visionary

  26. The Stolen Horse

  27. One Card

  28. Queen of the Air

  29. Annus Horribilis

  30. The Fox

  31. The Trap

  32. The Boom

  33. Terra Incognita

  34. El Dorado

  35. The Emissary

  36. Survival of the Fittest

  37. Around the World

  38. The Monster

  39. Engage the Enemy More Closely

  40. The Duelists

  41. The Great Circle

  42. Master of Ocean Aircraft

  43. The Hooked Cross

  44. The Ledgers

  45. The Medusa

  46. The Labyrinth

  47. Here Be Dragons

  48. Master and Commander

  49. Mr. and Mrs. Brown

  50. Es Ist Das Ende

  51. The Infernal Device

  52. Resurrection

  53. King Across the Water

  Epilogue

  Photo Insert

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Bibliography

  Notes

  By Alexander Rose

  About the Author

  The students of the problem are divided into two camps or schools, each of which expects flight to be compassed by somewhat different apparatus. These are:

  1: AERONAUTS, who believe that success is to come through some sort of balloon, and that the apparatus must be lighter than the air which it displaces.

  2: AVIATORS, who point to the birds, believe that the apparatus must be heavier than the air, and hope for success by purely mechanical means.

  Curiously enough, there seems to be very little concert of study between these two schools. Each believes the other so wrong as to have no chance of ultimate success.

  OCTAVE CHANUTE, Aerial Navigation (1891)

  Prologue October 9, 1936

  A PENCIL BALANCES UPRIGHT on its unsharpened end. A glass of water, its contents motionless, waits nearby. A tower of playing cards looms.

  A steward bumps the table as he shimmers past. The pencil falls. The water ripples. The cards tumble.

  He offers his sincere apologies and hurriedly tidies up.

  There are scores of guests aboard today, most dressed immaculately in dark suits and sober ties, the uniform of the prewar American elite class. According to the newspapers, their cumulative net worth is more than a billion dollars—that’s in 1936 dollars, when a billion was real money. With so much cash in human form walking around, their hosts have gone to great lengths to ensure a perfect day.

  The list of the Great and the Good seems endless on this, the so-called Millionaires’ Flight. As John B. Kennedy, the NBC radio announcer broadcasting live from this midday summit, quips for his listeners: “We’ve got enough notables…to make the Who’s Who say what’s what.”

  Among the grandees present is Winthrop Aldrich, chairman of Chase National Bank, the mightiest bank in the world. His nephew Nelson Rockefeller works, perhaps not entirely coincidentally, for Chase, and he’s also here today.

  On the business side, among many others there are Paul Litchfield (president of Goodyear Tire & Rubber), Medley Whelpley (president of the American Express Bank), and John Hertz (owner of Hertz Drive-Ur-Self System).

  The airline industry, in particular, has shown up in force. Colorful Jack Frye is president of TWA, and Eddie Rickenbacker, legendary World War I fighter ace, captains Eastern Air. Lucius Manning is there, representing the secretive Errett Lobban Cord, the transport tycoon who owns American Airlines.

  Federal officials are there, too, nearly all from the Department of Commerce’s aeronautics branch, a body dedicated to overseeing America’s development of civil aviation. Complementing them is a contingent from the navy, including Admiral William Standley, the chief of naval operations, and Rear Admiral Arthur Cook, who heads its Bureau of Aeronautics.

  Luncheon is served. In this dining room, furnished in hyper-modern style, barely a corner can be seen; all is graceful curves and vibrant colors. The sleek tables and chairs are made of chromed aluminum tubing, the fittings of futuristic plastic. There is none of the heavy wood and garish brass, the old-fashioned bric-a-brac and busy chintz so characteristic of the passé Edwardian era.

  Indian Swallow Nest soup, cold Rhine salmon, and potato salad precede the main course of tenderloin steak in goose liver sauce, Chateau potatoes, and Beans à la Princesse (accompanied by a cheeky 1934 Piesporter Goldtröpfchen—a Riesling), followed by a Carmen salad and iced California melon, washed down with a sparkling Feist Brut (1928). Strong Turkish coffee, light Austrian pastries, and fine French liqueurs finish off the meal.
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  As the staff clear the tables, the guests walk over to a slanted bank of picture windows running the length of the room.

  About six hundred feet below spreads a delightful panorama of coastal New England in the fall. To one side, a cobalt sea peppered with yachts; to the other, an emerald coastline edged by endless reddening forest, interrupted only by the occasional town.

  It is a grand view even for such exalted company.

  But there is hardly time to fix one’s gaze. The passing cavalcade is changing every moment, after all.

  Soon they’re over Boston. In the streets, darkened by a great shadow, the cars stop and the thronging crowds pause in awe and astonishment at the strange object passing directly overhead. Then they wave and cheer.

  The men sailing above return the compliment, casting off blue-blooded reserve to exult in the adulation and envy of their audience.

  Watching over everyone is Herr Hitler, as the newspapers politely refer to him, whose portrait presides sternly over the room. Few find it overbearing: He did an admirable job, after all, hosting the Berlin Olympics a few months ago. Apart from the brief unpleasantness of 1917–18, Germany and America are friends, always will be, and there is every reason to believe, especially once this clubby, boozy afternoon is over, that Berlin and Washington will deepen their relationship.

  Playing gracious hosts are the Germans. They have sent no less a personage than Hans Luther, currently their ambassador to Washington and the former chancellor of Germany and president of the Reichsbank. He’s accompanied by a couple of army and navy attachés, who chat about military matters with the American admirals.

  But the exclusive focus of attention, the real reason why all are gathered here today, is one German in particular—Dr. Hugo Eckener. In his late sixties, he is buzzcutted and goateed, and as German as one can be. He also happens to be one of the most famous men in the world.

  Eckener lacks the privilege, wealth, or station of the others assembled, but his ambition and audacity are legendary.

  He is the greatest airshipman of all time. With more flying hours under his belt than anyone else alive or dead, he is master of the aery realm. He is the anointed heir of the father of the airship, Count von Zeppelin, and just as it was Joshua, not Moses, who led the Israelites into the Promised Land, it is Eckener who has surpassed his late mentor’s achievements by conceiving the greatest and grandest airship of them all, the most marvelous technological and aeronautical wonder of the age—the very vessel, in fact, in which the titans are soaring.

  Hindenburg.

  The ultimate transoceanic cruiser. Painted a metallic silver to better glint in the sun, the Hindenburg can fly at 84 miles per hour and is capable, or so it is said, of traveling ten thousand miles—enough to go from New York to Berlin and back with a couple of thousand to spare—in a single hop.

  It is beyond safe. Since 1912, Eckener’s civilian airships have flown 48,778 passengers 1,193,501 miles, over 20,877 hours of flight time, with neither a fatality nor even a serious injury. Considering that in this same year of 1936 alone, 36,126 Americans will die in car crashes and 305 airplane passengers in 1,739 accidents, the Zeppelins’ record is second to none.

  From a passenger standpoint, the Hindenburg is wondrous. It typically makes the transatlantic run between Germany and New York in just over two days, whereas the world’s fastest cruise ships need five, and the slower ones up to ten. The Hindenburg is so light that it can be docked with two ropes, so nimble that it can revolve on its own axis, and so stable that the passengers can entertain one another with little party tricks involving pencils, water, and cards.

  Unlike on aircraft, where stomach-churning yaws and pitches are common, no one ever feels nauseous aboard the Hindenburg. During liftoff, there is simply no sense of acceleration, motion, or vibration, and while on airplanes the noise level from the engines can be deafening, on an airship all that can be heard is a dull hum. They’re quieter than an unbusy office.

  The sheer immensity of the Hindenburg astounds. At 805 feet, it is significantly longer than the Golden Gate Bridge’s towers are tall, and one could stand a thirteen-story building within its cathedral of elvish latticework delicately lacing together fourteen miles of girders with eighty of steel wire.

  Eckener knows his guests are impressed. He needs them to be. Every single one of them has been invited for a reason. Each man represents a potential interest that needs placating, persuading, seducing, so that Eckener can at last fulfill the grand dream behind today’s congress: forging an international partnership that will create an airship armada covering Europe, the Americas, and Asia.

  Without their participation, the Hindenburg may be the last of its kind to roam the skies. Eckener would never admit it, of course, but the airship is falling ever further behind.

  The airplane may be a beast that guzzles fuel and carries a relative handful of passengers, and it is far from achieving the Holy Grail of transport—a nonstop transatlantic trip—but sheer quantity has its own quality. In the United States, just in 1936, the airlines transported 931,683 passengers, and its factories produced 3,010 civilian aircraft. There is only one Hindenburg, built at colossal expense, and it carries around fifty passengers.

  Success today will nevertheless turn the tide against the airplane.

  To win, Eckener needs to beat one man. For years they have been bitter rivals, but today is the first time they have met. So far they’ve said little to each other, but each is watching the other carefully, scanning for weakness.

  This other man, young, pudgy, jowly, is the head of the only American airline with major international routes—and lethal when it comes to getting his own way.

  Juan Terry Trippe controls Pan American Airways, the greatest airline in the world. While his airplanes can’t get across the moat of the Atlantic, they soon will, and Trippe is determined to consign the Hindenburg and its like to the dustbin of history. He shall not rest until Pan American’s silvery squadrons radiate outward to the very ends of the earth.

  Such is the setting on this day of the Millionaires’ Flight, as the Hindenburg has long since rounded Boston and is moving like a speeding cloud toward its final destination, the naval air base at Lakehurst, New Jersey.

  At 5:17 P.M., the Hindenburg settles into its quiet, motionless hover as its four mighty Daimler engines cut thrust. From the control car, Captain Ernst Lehmann dumps water ballast and valves hydrogen to ease the airship gently down. Crewmen release two ropes, each four hundred feet long and two inches thick, which snake down through the air.

  Below, the ground crew pick them up and heave the Hindenburg toward the mooring mast. Ever so slowly, the airship is winched down to the ground. Its giant body subsides and the groundsmen bind the airship down with ropes, hooks, and stakes, as the Lilliputians did Gulliver.

  Inside, the tipsy guests lament the finale of their worthy expedition, what Kennedy calls “the end of a perfect day in the air.”

  And then, just like that, it’s over.

  The gangway is lowered, and the millionaires, grasping their hats in the wind, descend the steps. Yet another flawless performance by the world’s most majestic flying machine.

  Trippe, for his part, remains tight-lipped. Eckener’s coup is his humiliation. He suspects the deal is done: America will soon be in the airship business and Zeppelin will duel with Pan American for mastery of the coming air empire.

  This evening, Dr. Hugo Eckener will soar home in triumph aboard the Hindenburg, its future secured, amid the parting fog and clearing skies.1

  His airship has exactly seven months left to live, but it was born some seventy-three years earlier, when a young German count visiting America asked for a room for the night.

  1. The Aeronaut

  O​N AUGUST 17, 1863, America was engulfed in civil war. The battles of Gettysburg and Vicksburg had been fought just six weeks earlier, but Mr.
Belote, the manager of the International Hotel, the finest in the city of Saint Paul, Minnesota, didn’t care about the Blue and the Gray. That night, he was more concerned about the brown—the brown mud, that is—being tracked into his establishment by the hollow-cheeked, rough-whiskered frontiersman claiming to be a “Graf von Zeppelin.”

  He certainly didn’t look like one of the fancy European aristocrats Mr. Belote had read about. Yet he sounded courtly, even if he spoke English, haltingly, with a strong German accent. Upon closer inspection, his clothes, too, were tailored, though torn and ragged and not altogether suited to the backwoods; he was evidently a man who purchased rather than shot what he wore. Still, at the International Hotel, they didn’t let rooms to riff-raff or charlatans.1

  The man, sensing the manager’s reluctance, explained that he had spent the last three weeks roaming the wilderness.2 Fueled by the romantic fantasies of deerslayers exploring primeval American forests he had picked up from reading too many James Fenimore Cooper novels, he had elected to travel along an abandoned fur-trade trail. It was a wonder he hadn’t died. Having quickly run out of food and ammunition and beset by mosquitoes and heat, he had been saved by some Chippewa Indians who showed him how to hunt ducks, build a shelter, and gather eggs.3

  It had been quite an adventure, but he was ready for a comfortable bed, a bath, and a hearty dinner—and had the money at hand. Once he saw the dollars, Mr. Belote relented: He’d be only too pleased to offer such a distinguished gentleman his best accommodations. Due to return east on the next day’s train, the man paid for a single night’s stay.