LAKEHURST – While the Navy Lakehurst Historical Society museum remains closed, the 83rd anniversary of the Hindenburg disaster was not left unnoticed on May 6.
Carl Jablonski, the long-time president of the NLHS noted on the day’s anniversary day, “with the cooperation of the Navy, there is a video on Facebook regarding today’s event. There is no live event; it is all on tape.”
Jablonski said another video that aired on Facebook at 7:25 p.m. that night, included the names of all who died during that tragic event. It is on both the Navy and the NLHS Facebook page. “This is the first time in my 25 years as president, that I will not be MCing the ceremony.”
“The COVID-19 virus caused us to close up shop for this event,” Jablonski said expressing to the community that “I sincerely hope that you and your family are okay health-wise regarding COVID-19.”
NLHS is still closed with regard to tours and the gift shop. Jablonski said “Base Security checks our spaces, displays and gift shop areas on a daily basis.”
He added, “no one really knows when NLHS will be given the okay to reopen. I’m assuming we are looking at several months or less before we can be fully reopened. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19 the May air show was canceled and pushed back to 2022.”
Jablonski noted that conditions of the pandemic have negatively impacted the group’s financial status. “The airshow and our gift shop provided NLHS with our main source of income. However, we still have expenses to take care of.”
Jablonski said with this in mind, “I’m asking our members and Friends of NLHS to voluntarily consider making a donation to NLHS. I know we are all burdened with expenses at this difficult time, so please understand that this request is completely voluntary.” The group’s address is NLHS PO BOX 328 Lakehurst, New Jersey, 08733. The group’s website also links to a PayPal account to accept donations.
NLHS is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the distinguished heritage of Naval Air Station Lakehurst.
Although Navy Lakehurst will forever be remembered as the site of the Hindenburg disaster, many other significant events have taken place here. The station was the western terminus for the commercial transatlantic flights of the German dirigibles Hindenburg and Graf Zeppelin. Navy Lakehurst was the first international airport in the United States. The first Navy Helicopter Squadron and the first live ejection seat test were at Navy Lakehurst.
In 2017, the NLHS played a major role in observing the 80th anniversary of the Hindenburg which noted recalled the details of the tragic airship accident that put the borough of Lakehurst and Ocean County on the global map. Several hundred people came out to remember the event which took the lives of 36 people involved with the final flight of the DLZ-129 Hindenburg.
Military personnel, public officials, historians and those simply curious came out on the evening of May 6, 2017 to the grounds of the Lakehurst Naval Air Station where the explosion and crash occurred eight decades ago. A ceremony was held in partnership between the Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst and the NLHS.
The full account and chronology of what occurred was reviewed by the various speakers at the event. Jablonski read the names of those lost at the close of the ceremony; Col. Frederick Thaden, commander, Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst; Dr. Horst Schirmer, whose father designed the aeronautics for the Hindenburg; Ocean County Freeholder Virginia E. “Ginny” Haines; and Lt. Gen. Gina M. Grosso; U.S. Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Manpower, Personnel and Services, Headquarters.
Freeholder Haines noted that the Joint Base remains “a very important facility for our country.”
Dr. Horst Schirmer, whose father designed the aeronautics for the Hindenburg, remarked that day that, “there were 112 dirigibles built in World War I to use in war. The Hindenburg was so large it barely fit in the hanger here,” he said. “My father was engaged in physics and all the aeronautics in the construction of the Hindenburg. I was taken aboard as a little boy by my father.”
Jablonski noted that Dr. Schirmer and Mrs. Close Springs are the last two people still alive who had ridden aboard the Hindenburg although not on its final flight. Springs’s flight was in September of 1936.
Schirmer who Jablonski said had never missed a ceremony of the Hindenburg and would have been present this year, said during his 2017 speech, “a combination of factors concerning the venting system most likely caused the hydrogen to ignite. We will never know what happened. Hopefully there was no sabotage. Despite what happened the Hindenburg left us with a good view of these flights. It was a fabulous machine.”
