Michael Morgan / Ted Mathias photo/ Salisbury Daily Times
• Delaware Coast News, April 23, 1933
• Akron & Macon, http://www.ciderpresspottery.com/ZLA/greatzeps/american/Akron_Macon.html
• Our Airship History, http://www.nlhs.com/ourltahist.htm
• Kingsport Times, April 19, 1933, Newspaper Abstracts, http://www.newspaperabstracts.com/link.php?action=detail&id=36412
Louise Corkran and a few of her friends enjoyed the spring weather as they walked along the Rehoboth beach. Corkran and her husband, real estate developer Wilbur, lived in Rehoboth’s oldest house, “The Homestead.”
Legend has it that Peter Marsch built the two-story mansion clad with cypress shingles so that he could be close to the dunes where he could search for the legendary treasure of Captain Kidd. As far as is known, Marsh did not discover a single doubloon of pirate gold; but in April, 1933, Louise Corkan found a well-worn gold coin and a 6-foot long piece of aluminum.
The Delaware Coast News reported, “Mrs. Cockran found a gold piece about the size of an American quarter, but due to the wear, the identification of the country and the year was not possible.” On the other hand, serial numbers on the piece of aluminum linked this piece of flotsam to one of America’s recent tragedies.
On April 3, 1933, the airship Akron was eased out of its hanger at Lakehurst, New Jersey and floated aloft. As long as a battleship and as tall as a 15-story building, the Akron sailed over Philadelphia and headed down the Delaware Bay.
Inside the cavernous space of the airship’s fabric-covered hull, there was space for the gas bags to lift the ship into the sky, quarters for the 89 members of the crew, eight engines to drive the airship forward, and four fixed-wing scout aircraft.
Unlike the German Zeppelins, which were carried aloft by highly flammable hydrogen, the Akron relied on nonflammable helium to carry it off the ground into the sky. Without the fear that a stray spark would turn the airship into an inferno, the Akron was able to launch and retrieve four scout planes from inside its fabric-covered hull. The sight of the flying aircraft carrier cruising among the clouds at 80 miles per hour earned the Akron the nickname, “Queen of the Skies.”
When the airship reached Cape Henlopen and the mouth of the bay, the Akron turned north and sailed along the New Jersey coast. It was near Atlantic City when heavy winds drove the airship downward until the tail of the Akron struck the surface of the ocean. Moments later, the rest of the enormous vessel crashed into the waves. There were no life-jackets aboard the Akron, and the crew did not have time to launch the single life-raft on the airship.
A nearby ship was able to pluck three survivors from the ocean; but 73 other men died when the Akron disappeared beneath the waves.
The churning waters of the Atlantic tore the remains of the once great airship apart; and within days, debris from the Akron began to wash ashore on New Jersey beaches.
Nearly three weeks after the disaster, the Delaware Coast News reported: “Mrs. W. F. Corkran ... found a piece of the Akron on Rehoboth Beach between the Life Saving Station and the Indian River Inlet. The strip of outside covering of the majestic airship was about 6 feet long with the aluminum covering underlaid with a thin strip of insulation material over a lightweight wood; the under part was of a cork composition.”
In addition to the debris found by Corkran and her friends, members of the Coast Guard retrieved scraps of wreckage that included a 10-foot section of catwalk, a large cushion, a tabletop and a window marked “starboard No. 3” with the isinglass still intact.
The crash of the Akron, the fiery explosion of the Hindenburg in 1937, and several other airship mishaps dampened the public’s interest in lighter-than-air ships. The “Queen of the Skies” once soared over Cape Henlopen; but the Akron ended up as debris scattered across the beach alongside the lost treasure of Kidd.