But just four years earlier (than the Hindenburg disaster), a U.S. Navy airship seemingly jinxed from the start and later celebrated in song crashed only about 40 miles away, claiming more than twice as many lives.


I wonder what the song was. I know about Dalhart's Wreck of the Shenandoah, but what was the song about the Akron?

-Joe-

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Guess I should answer my own question with a message I posted a while back:
Thread #15327   Message #2210007
Posted By: Joe Offer
06-Dec-07 - 04:55 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Wreck of the Shenandoah
Subject: Lyr Req: The Crash of the Akron

I got a 3-disk set called People Take Warning! Murder Ballads & Disaster Songs, 1913-1938. It has a 1933 Bob Miller recording of a song by Francis Sims titled "Crash of the Akron." The booklet has this fragment of the lyrics:

Seventy-three good men perished
They all died at their post
Seventy-three passed on to Glory
Out on that Jersey Coast

...An enraged element called lightning
With fury in its grip
Destroyed what once was such beauty
Destroyed that noble ship.

I'll get around to a full by-ear transcription sooner or later - but if anybody has the lyrics and can post them and save me the effort, please do. I gotta go teach my kid now.

-Joe-

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Transcription will follow. In the meantime, here's a video report of the crash of the Akron.