The 1977 Tenerife Airport Disaster

Depiction of the Tenerife Airport Disaster in 1977
Depiction of the Tenerife Airport Disaster in 1977

On Sunday 27 March 1977, just after 5:00 PM, two 747 jumbo jets collided during take-off on the runway of Los Rodeos Airport in the Canary Islands off the Spanish coast. The collision caused a massive explosion and both aircraft were engulfed in flames. The Tenerife airport disaster remains the deadliest crash in aviation history.  

Despite the devastating impact and resulting fire, there were some survivors. Of the 644 people on board the two planes, 583 were killed and 61 somehow managed to survive.  The crash of a single passenger airplane is bad enough. How could two 747’s have collided on the same runway?  Nearly a dozen mistakes and uncontrollable events lined up for the disaster to occur. The pilots of both planes were experienced, but they both made critical errors that led to the horrific tragedy.

The KLM Flight 4805 from Amsterdam to Gran Canaria was flown by Captain Jacob Veldhuyzen van Zanten and First Officer Klaas Meurs. It carried 14 crew and 234 passengers on departure from Tenerife.  The Pan Am Flight 1736 from New York JFK to Gran Canaria was piloted by Captain Victor Grubbs and First Officer Robert Bragg. It carried 16 crew and 380 passengers.

Ironically, neither of the planes should have even been at Tenerife, let alone on the same runway at the same time. So how did the Tenerife airport disaster happen?  Both 747’s were carrying passengers heading towards vacations on Grand Canary Island. That Sunday morning, shortly before the arrival of the two jumbo jets, a terrorist group set off a bomb in Grand Canary’s Las Palmas Airport terminal.

A telephoned threat made reference to “bombs,” so all incoming flights were postponed or diverted.

While the search for a second bomb was carried out, incoming aircrafts, including the Pan Am and KLM 747’s were diverted. They landed at nearby Tenerife Los Rodeos Airport to wait until Las Palmas officials gave the all-clear. The search took hours and hundreds of buckled-in passengers now stuck in Tenerife became impatient.

The much smaller Los Rodeos Airport had only one runway, one parallel taxiway, and limited space for aircraft. The diverted aircraft had to park on the taxiway, meaning departing aircraft had to taxi into position around them using the runway. Only two Air Traffic Controllers were on duty, and they had to handle much more traffic than either had ever seen.

Trying not to jam up the airport’s small terminal building, Pan Am Captain Grubbs kept the 380 passengers and 13 crew on board while they waited. After an hour or so, Grubbs invited anyone on board to have a look in the 747’s cockpit.  Dozens of curious and bored passengers eagerly accepted the offer. A line of people extended through the second-floor lounge, down a circular stairway into the first-class section.

“They ordered us down without saying why,” Grubbs told frustrated passengers. “We told them that we could remain in a holding pattern above Las Palmas because we had plenty of fuel.” If Pan Am had been allowed to stay in a holding pattern, the ensuing accident would never have happened.

In the KLM plane, Captain Van Zanten had let their 234 passengers leave the airplane and wait in the small Tenerife terminal. While they waited, the KLM cockpit crew worried aloud about their Dutch government’s strict rules limiting overtime for flight crews. Their continuing flight from Grand Canary back to Amsterdam would push that limit.  “It could mean serious fines and even a revocation of your pilot’s license,” Captain van Zanten explained to his cockpit crew.

The KLM captain then decided to use the time waiting at the terminal to refuel his plane so he would not have to later at Gran Canary.  It was a decision that would later prove disastrous.  Just after the refueling began, the tower informed them that Las Palmas airport had reopened. But now, KLM had to wait for the fuel truck to finish.  

Several smaller passenger jets were able to taxi around the KLM 747 and onto the runway and leave Tenerife. But Pan Am, parked behind KLM on the apron was too large and had to wait as well.  And with the extra fuel, KLM had become thousands of pounds heavier, meaning it would need more runway to get off the ground. Another factor that would prove disastrous in a few minutes.

KLM terminal staff rounded up all the passengers and bused them back to the waiting plane. Meanwhile, an evening fog rolled in and the visibility throughout the Tenerife airport quickly worsened.  Los Rodeos Airport frequently suffered from foggy conditions. Drifting clouds reduced the visibility to less than 100 meters (110 yards) on the runway.  

In addition to the crew’s visibility, the fog affected the tower’s view as well.

Shortly before 5 PM, the control tower gave KLM permission to start its engines and gave them take-off instructions.  They were to taxi and enter the runway at the northwest end, move down the runway, and leave it at exit turnoff  C-3 for the adjacent taxiway.  From there it could continue to the southeast end of the taxiway, swing back onto the runway, then wait for its final takeoff run back to the northwest. The Pan Am 747 also started its engines, and the tower gave them the same instructions, following behind the KLM plane.

But that’s not what happened. Both cockpit crews got confused about the runway exit they were supposed to take. Neither crew was sure which exit the ground controller had told them to take. C-3 required a difficult maneuver. They would have to turn their huge 747’s 135 degrees to the left to get onto C-3, then turn 135 degrees to the right to get on the taxiway. By comparison, the C-4 turnoff was only a 45 degree turn.

After several back and fourths between KLM and the tower seeking clarity, the airport traffic controller changed his mind.  At 4:56 PM, the tower gave the KLM aircraft clearance to taxi the length of the runway and do a 180-degree turn, so that the jet was then facing the direction for take-off.

The KLM crew did as directed, going to the end the runway and completed their turn.  In the meantime, the Pan Am 747 was entering the runway on the other end as KLM just had. At 5:02 PM, the Pan Am aircraft was instructed to start its taxi along the runway and exit at C-3. As with KLM, the Pan Am crew was confused. Grubbs and Bragg had trouble believing they weren’t supposed to leave at C-4.

Paths of the 747s at Tenerife Airport at the time of the crash

The Pan Am aircraft did not take the third exit, which would have required the two sharp turns and continued to taxi along the runway towards C-4. Copilot Bragg later said the fog was so heavy that they taxied past C-3 without noticing it.  The two jumbo jets were now facing each other on the same runway at opposite ends, but unable to see each other through the fog. 

Tenerife air traffic controllers could not see the runway and had no ground radar.

At 5:06 PM, the tower gave KLM departure and routing instructions but not takeoff clearance. KLM 4805 read this back and finished with, “We are now at takeoff.”  The response from the tower was, “Stand by for takeoff. I will call you.” The KLM crew likely missed part of this critical communication due to radio interference.

At the same time, the Pan Am crew radioed, “We’re still taxiing down the runway, Pan Am 1736.” The overlap in these two messages led to the KLM crew not hearing the critical tower instructions.  That transmission should have been audible in KLM’s cockpit, but instead an electronic buzz, or heterodyne, interfered with the transmission.  The KLM 747 began its take-off run!

Oblivious to this series of unfortunate events, the passengers inside each plane were adjusting seat backs, putting away personal items and getting ready for the short hop over to Las Palmas.  After a several-hour delay, the passengers were finally getting ready to take off to their vacations.

Just as Pan Am passed C-3, KLM’s captain took the action that sealed everyone’s fate: He began his takeoff roll before getting permission from the controller. First officer Klaas Meurs was still finishing a radio confirmation with the tower of their post-takeoff flight instructions.  At 5:06 pm, Captain van Zanten released the brake, pushed the throttles, and began accelerating down the runway.

“Stand by for takeoff. I will call you,” the controller had said to him.  Apparently van Zanten heard only the word “takeoff.”   Yet, even with van Zanten’s decision to begin, there was still one last opportunity to avoid the collision. The flight engineer did not like what he thought he’d heard on the radio. “Is Pan Am still on the runway?” he asked van Zanten, as KLM picked up speed.

Captain Van Zanten apparently didn’t hear him, and seconds ticked by. “What did you say?” the pilot asked.  “Is he not clear, the Pan American?” More seconds ticked by. “Oh … yes” van Zanten responded. The last words recorded in the KLM cockpit, just before the rash at 5:07 pm, were a shouted Dutch swear word, when Pan Am suddenly appeared through the fog still taxiing in front of them, “Godverdomme!”

The Pan Am 747 jumbo jet was moving slowly down the runway when the passengers felt a sudden sharp swerve to the left, heading off the runway.  Captain Grubbs and first officer Bragg had just seen the KLM 747 speeding through the fog directly toward them. Grubbs tried desperately to get out of the way, heading into the grass next to the runway.  They did not make it.

Captain Van Zanten pulled back hard on the yoke and added power in a unsuccessful attempt to take-off and clear the Pan Am 747. Just refueled, the plane was too heavy for such a maneuver.  The nose rose in the air and the plane’s tail carved a 68-foot groove in the runway.  

The ensuing collision and the jet fuel firestorm that followed killed everyone on board KLM 4805.

Photo of the Tenerife Airport Disaster of 1977
Photo of the Tenerife Airport Disaster of 1977

The KLM struck the Pan Am 747 at an angle because of that emergency left turn by Captain Grubbs.  Some sections of the 747 weren’t as damaged as those that took the full impact of KLM’s fuselage. After both planes came to a rest in pieces, around 100 Pan Am passengers were alive. What followed was a hellish few minutes of evacuation by some of the passengers, and a shocked immobility by others.  

The situation inside Pan Am 1736 required immediate escape as fires and smoke filled the cabin. The first people to respond, other than the crew members, were those who had looked at the safety cards and understood the cabin’s layout. Passengers made their way to the exits, only to find that no slides were available because the side of the plane had been ripped apart in the collision. They had no choice but to leap 20 feet down to the runway.

Several less-injured passengers climbed up through a hole in the ceiling, then down to the undamaged left wing.  The scene outside was pure chaos.  Huge orange flames and massive black smoke roared up from the destroyed Pan Am.  The KLM  wreckage was burning 400 yards down the runway.  Pan Am’s crew and four surviving flight attendants did their best to guide passengers to safety.  The Airport immediately launched rescue efforts to save the survivors.

At least 71 people on board the Pan Am plane were able to get away from the burning fuselage. However, several later died of their injuries.   Only 61 people survived. The collision and explosion instantly claimed the lives of the 248 passengers and crew on KLM Flight 4805, as well as 335 passengers and crew members on Pan Am Flight 1736.

Following the Tenerife airport disaster, an investigation was conducted to determine the cause. It was found that a series of miscommunications and misunderstandings among the air traffic controllers and pilots contributed to the tragedy. Poor visibility due to the fog also played a role. Los Rodeos Airport was ill-prepared to handle such a large number of diverted aircraft. The investigation revealed that KLM pilot Captain Jacob Veldhuyzen van Zanten made a critical error in attempting to take off without proper clearance.  

The investigation highlighted the importance of effective communication and coordination between air traffic controllers and pilots, as well as the need for improved runway safety protocols. As a result, numerous changes were made to international aviation regulations and procedures.

These changes included improved communication systems, increased training for pilots and air traffic controllers, new protocols for responding to adverse weather conditions, an expansion of runway traffic light systems.  In the years after the Tenerife airport disaster, the island’s government completed a new airport—this one with ground radar.

A memorial to honor the victims is the Tenerife Memorial Gardens, located in Los Rodeos Airport, near the site of the collision. It features a tall monument with the engraved names of all the victims.  Every year, on March 27th, ceremonies are held there to commemorate the Tenerife airport disaster and honor the memory of those who tragically lost their lives.

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The Mystery of the Dyatlov Pass Incident

Russian hikers head off to the Dyatlov Pass in 1959
Russian hikers heading off to the Dyatlov Pass in 1959

On February 1959, nine experienced Russian hikers went missing while trekking in Russia’s Ural Mountains.  They were ultimately all found dead in Dyatlov Pass with unusual injuries. The Soviet government at the time attributed the cause of death to a “compelling natural force.”  But that hardy explains the bizarre frozen corpses that rescuers found.  It took more than three months to locate all nine of their missing bodies.

Over the decades since, the strange state of the nine hikers’ cadavers has generated a wide range of theories ranging from avalanches to nuclear weapons testing. Although some theories are more plausible than others, the “Dyatlov Pass Incident” as it is called today, remains an unsolved mystery.  For over 60 years, authorities and amateur sleuths have tried to figure out what happened, in a place now called “Russia’s Area 51.”

On 23 January 1959, ten hikers set out for a winter adventure trek through Russia’s northern Ural Mountains, far to the east of the Volga River.  It was led by a 23-year-old hiker named Igor Alekseyevich Dyatlov.  He led a group of nine, experienced Soviet hikers/skiers, eight men and two women.  Most were from the Ural Polytechnical Institute. Their goal was to reach the peak of Mt. Ortorten, leaving from the small village of Vizhai. About five days into the journey, one of the students, Yuri Yudin decided to leave the team due to a sciatica flare-up and headed back.

Igor Dyatlov was studying engineering at the Ural Polytechnic Institute. He planned the trip with eight other students who were all in their early 20s and in excellent physical shape. All of the students were experienced hikers and skiers, as well as Semyon Zolotaryov, a sports instructor in his late 30s, who joined the expedition.

Before Dyatlov left, he told his local sports club that he’d send them a telegram as soon as they returned in about three weeks. But he never sent that telegram, and none of the hikers were ever seen alive again.  When February 20 came and went, and there was still no communication from the hikers, a search party was mounted. The volunteer rescue force that trekked through the pass first found their last campsite … but no hikers.   

The search party found their abandoned tent on February 26th. 

It was collapsed and covered in snow. Inside, their belongings were more or less undisturbed. The hikers’ boots, clothes and equipment were neatly arranged in the tent.  Food was sliced up on a plate as if the hikers were preparing to eat. The tent was slashed open, but someone had made the cut from the inside, as if trying to escape.

Eight of the Russian Dyatlov Pass victims before they started the trek.
Eight of the Russian Dyatlov Pass victims before they started the trek, 1959.

The rescue team called in military and police investigators to expand the search and determine what had happened to the missing team. By now, the investigators were not very hopeful. The route the hikers had chosen was highly difficult and accidents were common. With the hikers having been missing for so long, investigators expected to find an open-and-shut case of accidental deaths.

Over the next couple of weeks, the search party found the bodies of the first five hikers, spread out over the snowy pass. Surprisingly, some were in various states of undress and had bizarre injuries, with one appearing to have bitten off part of his own knuckle!

The first two bodies found were students Yuri Doroshenko, 21, and Yuri Krivonishchenko, 23, nearly a mile away from the tent, under a cedar tree next to the remains of a campfire. A medical examiner noted that the two had burned hands.  Doroshenko had a “brown-purple” complexion with a grayish foam coming from his mouth.  Krivonishchenko had inexplicably bitten off one of the knuckles of his own hand, and it was found still in his mouth.

Despite temperatures of −20 F/-29 C that night, both were shoeless and wearing only underwear.

The searchers then found the bodies of leader Igor Dyatlov and Zinaida Kolmogorova, 22, one of the two women, in a different location, hundreds of feet from the cedar tree.  They were apparently trying to head back to the tent when they died. Finally, searchers found the body of Rustem Slobodin, 23, who also appeared to be trying to make his way back to the tent.

Their campsite had been made on the slopes of Kholat Syakhl (Dead Mountain), at about 3,600 feet/1,100 meters. Despite nasty weather and slow progress, their last diary entries found at the tent, reflected high spirits. They even produced a little mock newspaper about the trip, “The Evening Ortoten” which bore the headline: “From now on, we know that the snowmen exist. They can be met in the Northern Urals, next to Otorten mountain.” The ‘They,’ is thought to refer to themselves.

There were eight or nine sets of footprints in the snow, accounting only for the hikers and not another ‘attacking’ party.  Many of them were clearly made by people with no boots on their feet. There was no sign of struggle.  There was also no sign of animals at the campsite. There was a snowstorm the night of February 2, which is when, based on their diaries, investigators believed they died.

The skiers must have fled their badly damaged tent, cut open from the inside, with all their gear still inside. Why did they die of exposure if they still had access to their gear before going out?  They appeared to have left the tent out of their own free will and in a desperate hurry.  Zolotaryov fled the camp with his camera, but not his gear. Rustem Slobodin had a small crack in his skull.  The investigators discovered no external wounds.

All five students appeared to have died from hypothermia, which can cause an erratic behavior called “paradoxical undressing.”  The brain’s hypothalamus malfunctions and the body’s temperature feels like its rising when it’s really dropping.  Victims illogically undress even though they are freezing to death. The various stages of undress was therefore somewhat explainable. 

While the circumstances were odd, investigators found that all five hikers died from hypothermia.

But this did not explain the strange condition of Doroshenko and  Krivonishchenko’s bodies. Slobodin had the skull fracture consistent with someone falling.  Kolmogorova had a baton-shaped bruise on her side. These two hikers were also generally under-dressed and wearing some of each other’s clothes.  This supported the idea that they’d fled suddenly into the freezing night for some reason, without being properly dressed, despite being experienced hikers.

It wasn’t until the other four bodies were found months later that the mystery only deepened. Three months later, on May 4th, when more of the snow in the area had melted, an Indigenous Mansi hunter discovered the remains of a snow den in a ravine about 250 feet from the original tent encampment.  Inside, rescue workers found the bodies of Aleksander Kolevatov, 24, Nikolay Thibeaux-Brignolle, 23, sports instructor Semyon Zolotaryov, 38, and Lyudmila Dubinina, 20, the second woman.

For three of the bodies, the cause of death did not appear to be hypothermia. Thibeaux-Brignolle had a severe skull fracture with fragments of bone in his brain,  Zolotaryov and Dubinina had major chest fractures caused by a force comparable to that of a car crash, not one another person could have inflicted. Both Zolotaryov and Dubinina’s eye sockets were empty.  Zolotaryov had a twisted neck.  Dubinina was also missing her tongue!  Who would do this? And why? Did another hiker from the group cut it out? 

The four dead seemed to have traded some of their clothing as well; Ludmila Dubinina’s foot was wrapped in a piece of Yuri Krivonischenko’s pants.  Semyon Zolotaryov was found wearing Dubinina’s hat and coat.  Some of the clothes had cuts in them, as though they were forcibly removed. 

Based on the site and from their cameras and diaries, investigators were able to piece together what may have happened.  On February 1, the team began to make their way through the pass towards Mt. Otorten.  As they pushed towards the base, they were hit by a snowstorm. Due to low visibility, they lost their direction and accidentally strayed west to the slope of nearby Dead Mountain.  To avoid losing the altitude they had climbed, Dyatlov called for camp to be made.

It was on this solitary mountainside that all nine hikers would die.

The initial Soviet investigation couldn’t determine that any crime had taken place.  It ended up concluding that the hikers had died from a “compelling natural force.” They closed the case a month later in May 1959. Some Russians wondered if the Soviet government was covering up something darker.

The Soviet government speculated that the hikers’ own incompetence caused their demises.  Investigators theorized a fast moving, violent avalanche was the culprit. The rumbling snow would have frightened the hikers out of their tents in a state of undress and sent them sprinting for the trees. An avalanche would have been powerful enough to inflict the injuries that killed the second group of hikers.

But the physical evidence of an avalanche just wasn’t there.  When investigators found the bodies, there was no evidence that an avalanche had occurred. There was no damage to the tree line, and no debris. Plus the physical terrain wouldn’t have made sense in the Dyatlov Pass. 

Early on, some suspected that the hikers’ deaths resulted from an ambush by the local Mansi tribe. A sudden attack would explain the way the hikers suddenly fled their tents and the wounds inflicted on the second group of four bodies. But the Mansi people were peaceful, and the evidence did not support a violent conflict. There was also no evidence of any footprints other than those of the hikers.  Plus, the damage done to two hikers’ bodies was similar to a car crash, not a human attack.

Another theory states that the deaths were the result of some argument among the group that got out of hand and turned violent.  There was a history of dating between several of the students. But people who knew the ski group well said they were largely a harmonious bunch of friends.

Perhaps most surprising was that the clothes of both Kolevatov and Dubinina contained traces of radiation!  It fueled speculation that the hikers had died in some kind of weapons testing incident gone wrong.  However, two years before, there had been a plutonium production accident known as the Kyshtym Disaster. One of the two hikers had lived in the contamination zone, and the other had helped with the clean-up effort. So their clothes could have still held traces of radiation. 

Igor Dyatlov, leader of the ill-fated Dyatlov Pass Incident
Igor Dyatlov, leader of the ill-fated Dyatlov Pass Incident, 1959

The Soviets archived and classified the investigation files.

After the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1991, the new Russian government released all the details of the investigation, including photos of the dead. But parts of the case files were found to be missing. With the official theory leaving a lot unexplained, many alternative explanations have been put forward in the six decades since. Hypothermia without an avalanche doesn’t explain the strange condition of the hikers’ bodies.

The Soviet KGB were suspects. The last campsite was located on the pathway from Balikonur Cosmodrone to Chyornaya Guba, a Soviet nuclear testing ground. Some speculated that they drank contaminated melted snow. A 12-year-old boy who attended the skiers’ funerals claimed that the bodies had a “deep brownish tan.” Aliens and UFOs, of course, came into the minds of conspiracy theorists. Some claimed the hikers were killed by a menk, a kind of Russian yeti, citing the “snowmen” referenced in the students’ mock newspaper.

Others point back to the radiation, so the hikers had been killed by some sort of secret radioactive weapons testing. Another group of hikers camped over 50 miles away the same night reported orange orbs in the night sky, supposed missile launches. The sound of a weapon could have drove the hikers from their tents in a panic. Half-clothed, they died from either hypothermia or got caught in the blast and died from their injuries.

But had radiation been significant, it would have appeared on more than just two of the hikers. The corpses’ skin color isn’t surprising given the frigid conditions in which they sat for weeks.  Other theories included illicit drug use that caused violent behavior in some of the hikers.  Another blamed an unusual weather event known as infrasound, caused by mountain to valley “katabatic” wind patterns.  They can lead to panic attacks in humans because the low-frequency sound waves create a kind of earthquake sensation inside the body.

Finally, in 2019, Russian officials reopened the case for a new investigation.

This time, however, they would only consider three theories: an avalanche, a snow slab, or a violent storm. And the case was once again closed with only a vague conclusion that no criminal activity was afoot. Investigators said that the hikers died of hypothermia after an avalanche or similar force pushed them out of their tent and into the cold, freezing half of then and crushing the others.

Two years later, two Swiss scientists claimed to have solved the mystery with their own theory about a special slab avalanche. The slope at the campsite wasn’t steep enough for a traditional avalanche.  But it was still possible for a smaller slab of snow to slide down over the tent. They speculated that the hikers ran a safe distance from the tent, some starting a fire and others digging a snow den. The den could have collapsed, causing the severe injuries. Scavenging animals could have selectively eaten the missing eyes and tongue. 

To this day, a scientific explanation for the deaths of these nine young hikers remains elusive  The Dyatlov Foundation, established by Yuri Kuntsevitch — the child eyewitness at the skiers’ funerals in 1959 — still works to persuade the Russian Federation  to reopen the investigation. The mountainside was named the Dyatlov Pass in honor of the lost expedition. A monument to the nine hikers was erected in the Mikhajlov Cemetery at Yekaterinburg.  There lay the only people who will ever know the full truth of what happened that snowy Russian night.

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The Forgotten USS Akron Airship Disaster

The USS Akron dirigible airship above San Diego, California
The USS Akron dirigible airship above San Diego, California

Most everyone knows of Germany’s Zeppelin the Hindenburg and its infamous destruction by fire in Lakehurst, New Jersey in 1937.  But few know that the United States also had an airship fleet of dirigibles at the same time.  And one of its members, the USS Akron, met a tragic fate as well, just four years earlier.  It crashed into the Atlantic Ocean during a violent storm and killed 73 of 76 on board, more than Hindenburg. What is the Akron’s forgotten story?

The airship began construction in November 1929 by the Goodyear-Zeppelin Company in Akron, Ohio. The design of the Akron, and its sister ship the Macon, were based on the plans of engineer Karl Arnstein. It was a 110 ton, 785-foot-long airship, just 20 feet shorter than the Hindenburg. Unlike the Hindenburg, the USS Akron and its sister ship were filled with nonflammable helium. First Lady Lou Hoover, wife of President Herbert Hoover, christened the rigid airship ZRS-4 “Akron” in its hanger in August 1931.

A month later, on September 23rd, more than 150,000 people gathered at Akron’s Airport to witness a remarkable spectacle. The USS Akron lifted off for the first time and made its maiden flight, with Lt. Cmdr. Charles Rosendahl in command. More than 100 passengers, including the Secretary of the Navy, were given a spectacular bird’s-eye view of Ohio.

With the USS Akron, the U.S. resumed world leadership in lighter-than-air craft. The goal was to demonstrate the value of airships, not only for the military, but for commerce as well. In October, she flew next with her crew of 60 to the Naval Air Station at Lakehurst, N.J. where she was formally commissioned into the U.S. Navy.

By the time the U.S entered World War I in 1917, Germany had already proven the value of rigid airships.  Their Zeppelins were notorious for dropping bombs on London at night, from an altitude higher than British airplanes could reach.  The U.S. Navy took note and began a program that would eventually commission four rigid airships. The USS Shenandoah became the first dirigible to fly across the U.S. and back in October 1924.  Its sister ship the USS Los Angeles made a record 331 flights.

Then a decade later came the more advanced USS Akron and USS Macon. 

Over the weeks that followed her commissioning, the Akron amassed 300 hours aloft in a series of flights along the east coast and Mississippi and Ohio River valleys.  Front-page newspaper stories and radio news reports kept Americans aware of their every flight.  The demonstration flights showed the new airship to the American public, and to congressional and government VIPs. The ship’s range was impressive as it was able to stay aloft for several days and fly thousands of miles without landing.

In May 1932, the Akron made a cross-country flight from Lakehurst to California.  She reached Camp Kearny and attempted to moor.  Unfortunately, neither trained ground handlers nor specialized mooring equipment was present yet. By the time she reached the airfield, the heat of the sun had warmed her helium, causing lift.  Plus the airship was lighter having used 40 tons of fuel during her crossing. The Akron became uncontrollable and began to lift up again! Most seamen on the mooring crew let go their lines. Three did not and were carried aloft. Two lost their grip and fell to their death. The third managed to cling to his line and was hoisted on board Akron.

Akron and her sistership Macon (ZRS-5, still under construction) were regarded as “flying aircraft carriers.” Akron’s squadron of Curtiss Sparrowhawk biplanes were added in July 1932.  The Akron for the first time tested the “trapeze” skyhook apparatus for the handling of aircraft while airborne. The pilots carried out historic take offs and “landings” from hangers on the underside of the Akron.  That summer, she was given her full complement of three Curtiss Sparrowhawks.

The USS Akron hanger, trapeze, and bi-wing airplane over open seas.
The USS Akron hanger, trapeze, and bi-wing airplane over open seas.

During the first months of 1933, Akron made several long distance flights including trips to Cuba and the Panama Canal Zone.  Akron also made several shorter publicity flights, including an appearance over the U.S. Capitol at the inauguration of President Franklin Roosevelt on March 4, 1933.

Just eighteen months after its maiden voyage, the airship would meet its tragic end.

The USS Akron departed Lakehurst on the evening of 3 April 1933 on a mission to calibrate its radio detection-finding equipment.  The ship was under the command of Frank McCord.  Amongst the 76 people on board were several VIPs including Rear Admiral William Moffett, Chief of the Navy’s Bureau of Aeronautics, and Cmdr. Frederick Berry, commanding officer of the Lakehurst Naval Air Station.

As she proceeded on her way, Akron encountered stormy weather, which only grew more severe as she passed over Barnegat Lighthouse at 10:00 PM. Around 12:30 AM off the New Jersey coast on 4 April 1933, wind gusts of terrific force suddenly struck the airship unmercifully.   The ship was hit by a series of strong updrafts, then violent downdrafts. The helpless airship rose and then fell sharply in the strong winds.  The captain ordered an immediate ascent and the nose of the airship rose.

While attempting to climb, another downdraft befell them and the ship’s tail violently struck the ocean, damaging all the rear fins.  With its control surfaces destroyed, the Akron was lost. The rest of the ship crashed down into the churning seas of the ocean.  With its superstructure damaged, its helium vented quickly into the clouds.  The captain gave the order – All hands abandon ship!  The USS Akron did not stay afloat for long and the metal airship quickly sank into the frigid waters of the Atlantic.   There were no lifejackets or rafts on board.

The German motorship Phoebus saw lights descending toward the ocean and altered course to investigate, thinking it was a plane crash. Amongst the debris, Phoebus’ men picked up Lt. Cmdr. Herbert Wiley, Akron’s executive officer, unconscious, plus three more men: Chief Radioman Robert Copeland, Boatswain’s Mate Richard Deal, and Aviation Metalsmith Moody Ervin. Despite attempts to resuscitate him, Chief Copeland never regained consciousness and died on board Phoebus.

No one else amongst the remained 76 seamen were rescued. The German sailors did not know that their ship had chanced upon the crash of a massive airship until Lt. Cmdr. Wiley regained consciousness a half hour later.   Phoebus then combed the ocean for over five hours in a futile search for more survivors.  None were found.

The Coast Guard destroyer Tucker, arrived at dawn and took on board the three Akron survivors and the body of Chief Copeland. The cruiser Portland, destroyer Cole, and Coast Guard cutter Mojave, as well as two Coast Guard planes joined the search efforts that day. Aside from some minor floating wreckage, not a single body was found. Without lifejackets or rafts, the rest of the ship’s passengers and crew had either drowned during the crash into the sea or from exposure to the frigid ocean water.

The cause of the crash is generally attributed to the ship’s commander.

McCord may have relied on incorrect altitude readings from the ships altimeter, rendered inaccurate by the low pressure in the storm.  Commander McCord may have thought his ship was higher than it really was, but should have known low barometric pressure would affect the altimeter. It’s equally possibly that McCord inadvertently flew his ship’s tail into the water.  With the nose of the ship raised sharply to climb, Akron’s tail may have pivoted into the ocean.

One of the three survivors, Akron executive officer Lt. Cmdr. Wiley, incredibly went on to lead the USS Macon’s crew.  Less than three weeks later, the Macon flew for its maiden voyage.  Two years later, the Macon would incredibly have its own disaster. Off the California coast in February 1935, excessive winds ripped off its upper fin. This caused it to descend slowly, landing gently in the waters off California.  This time, the Macon was equipped with life jackets and rafts — items not onboard the Akron — only two sailors died in that incident.

The sinking of both the Akron and Macon ended the Navy’s fleet of flying aircraft carriers, but not all dirigibles. During World War II, the Navy operated scouting airships in the Atlantic, Pacific, and  Mediterranean.  Akron’s disaster however spelled the beginning of the end for U.S. rigid airships and the program was scuttled in 1961.

Today, investigators have been able to scour the final resting places of the Akron in the Atlantic and the Macon in the Pacific in the decades since they tragically went down.

President Franklin Roosevelt commented at the time: “The loss of the Akron with its crew of gallant officers and men is a national disaster. I grieve with the nation and especially with the wives and families of the men who were lost. Ships can be replaced, but our nation can ill afford to lose such men upholding to the end the finest traditions of the United States Navy.”

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The Lost Spanish Treasure Fleets

18th century Spanish Treasure Fleet
18th century Spanish Treasure Fleets

The two biggest, treasure fleet wrecks happened in 1715 and 1733, just 18 years apart.  Both were the result of fierce Caribbean hurricanes attacking Spanish bound fleets, loaded to the rafters with silver, gold, jewels, and other colonial treasure.   Such treasure fleets were routine in the waters around Florida and Cuba.  Nearly every year, from the 16th to 18th centuries, Spain sent armadas of ships to its Spanish colonies, reaping its ill-gotten treasures. Some of these ships have been discovered and salvaged.  Others still remain buried under the Caribbean Sea.  How did these fleets meet their terrible ends?

The 1715 Treasure Fleet

Two fleets regularly traveled between Spain and the Americas; La Flota de Tierra Firme and La Flota de Nueva España. The return voyages were always more dangerous as the galleons were heavy and far less maneuverable.  They were loaded with their precious cargoes of gold, silver, jewelry, tobacco, spices, and dyes. The crews were often sick as well with tropical diseases caught in the colony. The greatest danger, however, came from the unpredictable Mother Nature.  Like today, the warm waters of the South Atlantic created fast, unpredictable, and violent huracanes.

In 1715, Spain had just emerged from the War of Spanish Succession with Britain and France. King Philipe V of France had become Spain’s first Bourbon King.  Spain’s treasury was in dire need of finances after the long, expensive war.  They desperately needed a shipment of New World treasure to help pay its huge debts.

In the summer of 1715, eleven ships were assembled in Havana harbor. The treasure fleet was made up of the Flota de Tierra Firme, loaded at Cartagena, and of the Flota de Nueva España, loaded a Veracruz. The Flota de Tierra Firme was commanded by Capitán Don Antonio de Echeverz y Zubiza.  It consisted of six vessels laden with a chests of silver coins, gold bars, and jewels. His flagship was the Nuestra Señora de la Concepción. The five ships of the Flota de Nueva Espana were under the command of General Don Juan Esteban de Ubilla who commanded the combined fleet as well.

On 24 July 24, 1715, the combined fleet of 12 ships left Havana, headed for Spain via Florida’s east coast.  The French warship Griffon, commanded by Captain Antoine d’Aire, sailed with the fleet as the Spaniards were allied with the French.  Ubilla was on the capitana (fleet flagship) Nuestra Señora de la Regala. As well as the treasure, the cargo of the combined fleet included tobacco, indigo, dyes and drugs. In today’s money, the shipment would be worth about $200 million.

The fleet had suffered delays, and had been sitting idle for nearly two years waiting for the Succession War to end. Under pressure from the new king, General Ubilla made the decision to leave, even though the hurricane season had begun. His decision would prove deadly, for unknown to the Spaniards, a powerful hurricane was already brewing southeast of Cuba and headed there way.

The treasure fleet left Havana on a beautiful and calm day.  The ships followed the east coast of Florida, taking advantage of the Gulf Stream. For the first five days, the voyage was uneventful and gave no indication that a Category 4 hurricane was rapidly approaching them.

But on July 29th, long swells started to appear in the ocean from the southeast. The swells started to make the ships gently dip and roll. Experienced navigators and old hands started to worry. They knew this was the early signs of a tropical storm. The 1715 Fleet was directly in the path an ominous hurricane pursuing it up the Florida Straits

On July 30th, winds began to pick up. 

They increased to twenty knots and the sea delivered 10-foot swells. By late afternoon, winds were over thirty knots and the waves now twenty feet. To make matters worse, the approaching storm was relentlessly driving the fleet towards the Florida shore.  Captain-General Ubilla gave the order for all ships to head into the wind to stay clear of the reefs and shoals.  They would try to outrun the storm. The bulky, heavy galleons were not fast enough though.  The winds kept increasing, and by midnight, the ships were barely navigable.

In the very early morning of July 31, the richest Spanish treasure fleet ever assembled was now in grave peril.  The fleet was just south of Cabo Canaveral (Cape Canaveral) and in danger of being pushed onto the jagged coastal reefs. The Category 4 hurricane had caught the Spanish Fleet.  The storm rapidly grew, reached an alarming strength.  Over 100-mph winds, torrential rains, and high waves broke over the fleet of ships.  The terrified passengers huddled below decks and could only pray.

Around 4 am on July 31st, in the black of night, the hurricane eye struck the doomed ships.  One ship after another was either thrust upon the jagged Florida reefs or capsized by wind or waves.  Ubilla’s capitana was crushed on a jagged reef like a balsa wood model. Almost all aboard were killed, including Ubilla himself. The death toll would be staggering.

By dawn the next morning, the beaches were strewn with dead bodies and wreckage.  The powerful hurricane had capsized, grounded or destroyed every ship of the Spanish fleet – all the treasure galleons.  When daylight came, the full extent of the disaster was visible to the survivors. The wreckage of ships was spread some 20 miles along the Florida coast.  750 were dead, including women and children passengers. 

Soaked and shivering survivors were left with little food or fresh water.  

For those who had miraculously survived, they were now stranded in on an empty coast infested with disease-carrying mosquitoes and hostile Native Americans.  Survivor Admiral Don Francisco Salmon assumed command and immediately surveyed the extent of the damage. He slowly realized that all ships had been wrecked.  On August 6th, he sent the Ubilla’s pilot and 18 men in a small surviving launch toward Cuba. It took eleven days for the small boat to reach Havana.

The only ship to survive the storm was ironically the French warship Griffon, Captain Antoine d’Aire had chosen to head towards deeper waters early into the storm.  He arrived at Brittany on August 31st, completely unaware that all the Spanish ships in his fleet had perished.

When Spanish colonial authorities in Havana heard of the terrible disaster, they immediately sent ships north in an effort to salvage the galleons’ treasure and rescue the survivors. Within a few days, several ships were leaving Havana harbor, loaded with salvage equipment, emergency supplies, and a hundred soldiers to guard the precious treasure.

By the time they arrived in Florida, many of the injured had since died.  The Spaniards immediately went to work recovering large portions of the treasure. Some salvage success came early as sloops dragged the ocean floor for wreckage and quickly brought up chests of coins, jewelry and gold. By the time the weather turned in the fall, over 5,000,000 Pieces of Eight (silver coins) had been recovered.

News of the disaster swept the Americas and privateers and pirates flocked toward Florida like vultures. The British governor of Jamaica declared open season on the sunken treasure. Spanish salvagers soon faced the additional peril of armed raids.  By the end of the next summer, however, everyone was long gone. Winter had obliterated the wreck sites and the Spanish were content with what they had recovered.

But, in fact, a great fortune was still scattered along the ocean floor off the Florida coast.

Over the centuries since, the wreckage site faded from historical memory and the 1715 Fleet would lay undisturbed for 250 years. In the 1960’s, thanks to advances in Scuba, the modern age of treasure hunting began.  Some investigated why Spanish coins frequently washed ashore on the Florida coast after strong storms.  Spanish archival maps and documents seem to suggest that all 1715 shipwrecks were from Cape Canaveral south to Palmar de Ays (present day Sebastian). 

Since the 1960’s, seven of the eleven vessels have been discovered. They’ve been salvaged primarily by a group of 8 lucky treasure hunters calling themselves The Real Eight. Not a single 1715 Fleet shipwreck has been definitively identified though.  Names have been attributed by the treasure hunters, based on the amount of gold, silver, jewelry, and artifacts collected.

Four fleet vessels still remain undiscovered.

The 1733 Treasure Fleet

Twice a year in the 17th & 18th centuries, the marshy Mexican fishing village of Vera Cruz would come to life with activity. Flotas of treasure ships would arrive from Spain with supplies for the colony, but more importantly, leave laden with fortunes in silver ingots, gold coins, pearls, chocolate, and other treasures.

The dangers of Caribbean weather were well known to Lieutenant General Don Rodrigo de Torres y Morales, commander of the 1733 treasure ship armada. His fleet set sail for Spain on 25 May 1733, at the beginning of hurricane season.  The first leg of the journey, Vera Cruz to Havana, was uneventful. The fleet didn’t set sail for Spain until July 13th.  It was made up of 17 King’s ships, merchant ships, and 2 ships bound for St. Augustine, sailing with the fleet for protection against pirates – 22 ships in all.  The combined fortune aboard the fleet amounted to 13 million pesos.

Two days after leaving Havana for Spain, with a year’s collection of New World treasure stuffed below decks, the fleet would encounter a hurricane at the Upper Florida Keys.  One day into the voyage, on July 14th, the ships sighted Key West.  Sailors noticed that the sky had a “bad appearance” that day.  In the evening, the seas and sky slowly became rougher.  By the night of the 14th, the armada was nearing the jaws of an unexpected storm.

By dusk on the 15th, it was clear they were facing a hurricane. 

Don Rodrigo, the fleet captain aboard the capitano (flagship) El Rubi Segundo had put up colors instructing the other ships to turn and make for Havana.  But it was already too late. Large, heavy Spanish galleons didn’t have any means to make headway against the wind. When winds reached hurricane strength, crews couldn’t put any sail up.  By 10:30pm that night, all but one of the ships had lost their masts and rigging to the storm. 

The helpless sailors could now see the waves crashing on the nearby reefs they were being driven toward. It would be their turn next.  A passenger aboard Nuestra Senora de Las Angustius wrote in a poem, “The ship saw the silver reef … there was only time to sigh, to ask for grace from God. Clouds and waves were like approaching mountains….” The first ship grounded at 8:30 p.m., and pounded upon Little Conch Reef all night. She settled submerged to her decks. Terrified passengers and crew clung to the fallen rigging. 

The rest of the fleet would suffer a similar fate. By 11:00pm the next night, the hurricane had passed and the moon came out.  A thousand people had barely survived on their wrecked hulks and on the nearby Florida Key islets.  At daybreak on the July 16th, the skies were clear and survivors could see Cayo Largo and Cayo Plantacion.

Survivors could also see all the other grounded ships.

Galleon crews had cut away masts and pushed cannons overboard to prevent them from grounding, but to no avail.  The San Joseph sank in 30′ of water.  Her people crowded onto the raised afterdeck. No one aboard El Rubi Segundo, the capitana [flagship] expected to survive. But her only casualties were two sailors flung into the sea and a one crushed when the ship struck bottom.  She was submerged to her decks. 

A Spanish treasure galleon wrecked in a storm upon the reefs.
A Spanish treasure galleon wrecked in a storm upon the reefs.

Nuestra Senora de Belen grounded 3 miles offshore, broken apart on a reef, her cargo lost.  San Felipe grounded a mile offshore of a key, submerged to her deck.  All her people survived the storm, clinging to wreckage. Six large galleons with keels broken would never sail again. 

San Ignacio  broke into four pieces when she struck the reef.  Only 14 people aboard her survived.  The frigate Florida had but one survivor, a woman who floated ashore on a mast. El Gallo Indiana, the almiranta [rear of the fleet] grounded on beach with four dead, including a child.  

Only the La  Balandra Pequeno, was still afloat but dismasted, anchored between two sheltering keys.  Her cargo of 256 barrels of flour helped keep the shipwreck survivors alive in the days to come. Having somehow lived through the hurricane, survivors now faced survival on the wrecks.  Rafts were made from the wreckage of ships.  People were towed ashore by surviving ship’s boats.  The next day, more rafts were made for more people to go ashore.

Immediately after the storm, a ship was sent from Havana to check on the treasure fleet.  That city had also suffered from the hurricane. Before it returned, another Spanish ship came into port on the 21st with shocking news. They had seen 12 large galleons aground off the upper Keys.  The governor ordered all ten ships docked in Havana’s harbor sent to the Keys.

Rescue ships arrived just in time. 

A day of two more and they might have perished from exposure.  Two survivors’ camps were organized, and two makeshift forts of four cannon each were hastily built to protect the recovered treasure. The Spanish rescue ships then began to salvage the huge amount of treasure trapped in the wrecked hulls. It would continue for months.

They managed to refloat the three least-damaged ships with the tides. Over the next year, the Spanish recovered about $12 million of the original $20 million of treasure. After the salvagers recovered as much as they could, the Spanish burnt the exposed ships.  One by one, they disappeared from sight beneath the waves. 

In 1938, Islamorada fisherman Reggie Roberts asked diver Art McKee to look at an old “cannon wreck” he found.  McKee wrote to Spain after he discovered some Spanish coins on the wreck.  He received back a salvors’ map of the locations of ships of an entire fleet that had wrecked in the upper Keys in 1733.  One of North America’s greatest maritime disasters had been lost to history until that letter from Spain arrived.

They had found the capitana [El Rubi Segundo] near Upper Matecumbe Key. The lucky divers were able to recover most of the treasure aboard. Salvage divers recovered items from the sunken ship over the next 10 years. Additional gold was recovered as recent as 2015. In all they managed to find the Infante, Herrera, Chaves, San Pedro, and San Joseph. 

While most of the ships were found in 1733, an elusive few are still missing to this day. Off Florida’s Upper Keys, scuba divers occasional find gold coins or silver ingots, along with cannons and swords. Sometimes a strong tropical storm will wash ashore a silver goblet or piece of gold jewelry for the lucky beach walker. Lurking somewhere beneath the reefs of the Florida Keys still remains a vast fortune in Spanish treasure for the lucky diver.

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The Three Lives of Istanbul’s Famous Hagia Sophia

The Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey
The Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey

The Hagia Sophia in Istanbul is an architectural marvel built over 1,400 years ago when the city was still known as Constantinople.  Throughout its very long life, it has served as a Christian basilica for the Byzantine Empire, a grand mosque for the Ottoman Empire, and a renowned museum for Turkey.  Though it looks outwardly like a mosque, with its huge dome and four minarets, it was originally built as an Orthodox cathedral by the Emperor Justinian.

The Hagia Sophia served for a over millennium as the focus of worship for both Orthodox Christians and Turkish Muslims, depending on the ruling empire in control of the ancient city. It even had a short stint ruled by the Crusaders. The name Hagia Sophia (Aya sofya in Turkish) literally means “holy wisdom.” How then did such radial changes, basilica to mosque to museum, come about?

When the Hagia Sofia was first constructed, Constantinople was the capital of the Byzantine Empire. This Christian state formed the eastern half of the Roman Empire and continued on for centuries, even after the fall of Rome. The current Hagia Sophia is actually the third building on the site.  After moving the capital of the Roman Empire to Constantinople, Constantine the Great realized the city needed of a grand worship space for all its Christians. So he had built a large cathedral, close to his Imperial palace, which was completed in 360 AD.

Rioters burnt that church, with a wooden roof, in the riots of 404.  Emperor Theodosius II then ordered the construction of a new church . This Hagia Sophia incarnation, also with a wooden roof, was torched and burned to the ground during the Nika Revolt of 532.

I. CHRISTIAN BASILICA

It was Byzantine Emperor Justinian who ordered the demolition of the second Hagia Sophia.  He commissioned two renowned architects Anthemios of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus to build a third basilica in its place like no other.  It would have a massive stone dome, semi-domed altar, golden mosaics, and marble floors and walls.

Hagia Sophia’s dimensions are indeed formidable for such an ancient structure. The dome is 108 ft [33 m] in diameter and its peak stands 180 ft [55 m] above the floor.  It actually contains two floors, centered on a giant nave with the great dome towering above it.  In order to create a central basilica that represented the entire Byzantine Empire, Emperor Justinian commanded that all provinces to send architectural pieces to be used in its construction.

The marble for the floor and ceiling came from Anatolia in eastern Turkey. Bricks used in the walls came from North Africa. The Hagia Sophia’s 104 columns were imported from the ancient Temple of Artemis in Ephesus. Thousands of craftsmen and workers gathered from across the vast empire.

The central dome rests on a ring of windows, supported by two semi-domes and two arched openings to create the HUGE nave.  The walls were originally lined with intricate Byzantine mosaics made from gold, silver, glass, terra cotta and gems portraying scenes and figures from the Christian Gospels as well as images of the emperors (of course).

Interior of Istanbul's Hagia Sophia
Interior of Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia

The upper part of the dome was decorated in gold with a massive cross in a medallion at the dome’s summit. The dome was a supported by an ingenious, complex system of vaults and semi-domes. Procopius, Justinian’s court historian, described it as “A golden dome suspended from Heaven. It seems not to be founded on masonry, but to be suspended from heaven by a golden chain.” Beneath the dome are 40 windows allowing sunlight to come through at any time of the day.

This third iteration of the Hagia Sophia was completed in just 5 years in 537, and it remains standing today in Istanbul. To put this in comparison, it took nearly a century for medieval builders to construct the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Emperor Justinian is reported to have said, “My Lord, thank you for giving me the chance to create such a worshipping place. Solomon, I have surpassed thee!”

The Hagia Sophia has two levels, the ground floor and the main gallery above. In Byzantine churches, galleries were used as a means to segregate genders and social classes. So, only if you were a higher class male would you get to experience the glorious gallery. To enter the cathedral’s nave from the narthex, there are nine doorways.

The central, Imperial Door, was reserved exclusively for the use of the emperor.

The two waves of iconoclasm (rejection of religious images) swept the Byzantine Empire between 730 and 843.  Religious leaders ordered most of the religious icons within the Hagia Sophia to be obscured. The southwest entrance had a large mosaic of the Virgin Mary holding the Christ Child, flanked by Emperors Constantine and Justinian. All were covered with yellow paint.

Some of the precious mosaics were even destroyed. Unfortunately, few fragments of those originals remain to this day. The cross was promoted as the only acceptable decoration for Byzantine churches. There was concern that the faithful might misdirect their veneration toward the images, rather than to God and Christ alone.

All this was reversed during the reign of subsequent emperors in the 10th century, and icons were reestablished. This gave the opportunity for new mosaics to be placed in the church. The Hagia Sofia therefore remained a work in progress as each new emperor continued to decorate it.  A number of mosaics that have been added over the centuries include imperial portraits, imperial families, and the life of Jesus Christ.

When the Crusaders conquered Constantinople in 1204, they converted the Hagia Sophia from an Orthodox basilica to a Catholic cathedral.  This lasted only 57 years.  In 1261, Michael VIII was crowned emperor and the Hagia Sophia was converted back to an Orthodox church. It was severely damaged during the Crusades, but repaired when the Byzantines once again took control. 

As Greek Orthodox was the official religion of the Byzantines, the Hagia Sophia was considered the central church of the faith, and it thus became the place where new emperors were crowned. These ceremonies took place in the central nave, at a large circle of marble and colorful stones in the floor in an intertwining design.

The great church, however, followed the fate of the Byzantine Empire, and its condition declined into the last century before the fall of Constantinople. In the last days of the Empire, those fleeing the approaching Ottoman invaders sought refuge in the Hagia Sophia, praying and hoping for protection and salvation.

II. GRAND MOSQUE

The Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey
The Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey

A major change was in store less than 200 years after the Crusades.  Byzantine control ended when the Ottoman Empire, led by Emperor Mehmed II, captured Constantinople in 1453. The victorious Ottomans renamed the city Istanbul. The huge Christian cathedral made a strong impression on the Ottoman ruler.  “What a dome, that vies in rank with the nine spheres of heaven!”  Islam was the central religion of the Ottomans, so he decided to convert it into a grand mosque.

The Ottomans covered the original Orthodox mosaics with Islamic calligraphy. Workers hung large medallion panels on the columns in the nave.  They featured the names of Allah, the Prophet Muhammad, the first four Caliphs, and the Prophet’s two grandsons. The mosaic of Christ on the main dome was also covered by gold calligraphy. Other Christian mosaics were covered with whitewash plaster. 

The Hagia Sophia itself became the personal property of the Ottoman sultan. No changes could be made without the sultan’s approval. Even Islamic zealots dared not not destroy the Christian mosaics of the infidels, since they belonged to the Sultan. The grand style of the Hagia Sophia, in particular its dome, would go on to influence Ottoman architecture for centuries.

Four thin minaret towers were also added during this period. They served a religious purpose (for the muezzin call to prayer) and stood more than 200 ft (60 m) tall – amongst the tallest ever constructed. Workers also added thick exterior buttresses for structural support following a recent earthquake.

A new nave or mihrab was installed in the wall of the Hagia Sophia, as is tradition in mosques, to indicate the direction toward Mecca. Ottoman Emperor Süleyman installed two bronze lamps on each side of the mihrab in the 14 century.  Sultan Murad III then added two marble cubes from the Turkish city of Bergama, dating back to 4 B.C.

In the 19th-century, Sultan Abdulmejid ordered an extensive 2 year restoration in 1847. The supervision was handed over to two Swiss-Italian architect brothers, Gaspard and Giuseppe Fossati.  Eight new gigantic medallions designed by the calligrapher Kazasker Efendi were hung inside. They carried the names of Allah, Muhammad, the Rashidun, and Muhammad’s two grandsons: Hasan and Husayn.

III. NATIONAL MUSUEM

The Hagia Sofia remained a grand Islamic mosque for 5 centuries, until yet another major change occurred.  In 1935, the Turkish government secularized the building and converted it into a museum.  The Turkish Council of Ministers stated that due “to its historical significance, the conversion of the Hagia Sophia, a unique architectural monument of art, into a museum will please the entire Eastern world and will cause humanity to gain a new institution of knowledge.”

Mustafa Atatürk, the first president of the Republic of Turkey, even permitted the restoration of the original Christian mosaics in the Hagia Sophia. The restoration of Byzantine mosaics was particular challenging and controversial since it meant the removal of historic Islamic art added by the Sultans.

In 1985, the building was recognized by UNESCO. During 1990’s, the building’s copper roof cracked, causing water to leak down over the fragile mosaics. This prompted a decade-long project to restore the ancient site. Beginning in 2013 however, some Islamic religious leaders in the country began a campaign demanding the Hagia Sophia be restored as a mosque once again. In 2016, Muslim prayers were again held inside after 85 years. The mosaic of the Virgin and Child in the apse was covered by white curtains.

In July 2020, the Turkish Council of State and President Erdoğan officially reclassified it as an Islamic mosque. This caused concerns in UNESCO about what changes this 4th reclassification would bring to the famous building.  The World Council of Churches condemned the decision saying it would create suspicion and mistrust.

Today, it is used by Turkish Muslims for prayer and religious services. All visitors, both Muslim and non-Muslim, are still allowed to enter the grand mosque for free, outside of prayer times. Thankfully, research, repair and restoration work continues to this day. The Hagia Sophia remains an important historical and architectural site for international tourism, a pilgrimage site for Orthodox Christians, and a religious site for Muslims in Istanbul.

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Podcast: How a Teenage Boy Started World War I

On 28 June 1914, Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie were visiting the picturesque city of Sarajevo in the Balkans. Franz Ferdinand was also the nephew of the Emperor, and heir to the throne as well!  The Austro-Hungarian Empire had recently annexed the Balkan provinces, infuriating Serbia. Tensions were high and the fuse for World War I was about to be lit by an unlikely assassin – a teenage boy, Gavrilo Princip.

19 year old Serbian assassin Gavrilo Princip started World War I
19 year old Serbian assassin Gavrilo Princip
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Rachel Carson, Silent Spring and the birth of the Environmental Movement

Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring
Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring

Rachel Carson was a writer, marine biologist, and environmentalist who, in the early 1960’s, alerted the world to the ecological dangers of pesticides and fertilizers.  Her best-selling book, 1962’s Silent Spring outlined the environmental dangers of chemical pesticides in particular.  It led to a Kennedy presidential advisory commission that endorsed her findings.

Her book ultimately led to a nationwide ban on DDT and other hazardous pesticides.  More importantly, it also sparked the global environmental movement and ultimately led to the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  Who was this mild-mannered biologist who accomplished so much?

Rachel Louise Carson was born in 1907 on a farm in Springdale, Pennsylvania, the youngest of three children.  Her father was an insurance salesman and her mother worked the farm. Growing up on a farm gave her first-hand experience with nature and wildlife.  Her mother bestowed in her a life-long love of nature and the living world.  Young Rachel was an introvert and preferred nature to other children. She loved reading the works of Beatrix Potter and even became a published writer herself in a children’s magazine, St. Nicholas, at only 10.

Later, she attended the Pennsylvania College for Women (now Chatham University) in Pittsburgh, graduating magna cum laude in 1929. She then studied at the renowned oceanographic institute at Woods Hole, Massachusetts AND at Johns Hopkins University, where she received a Master’s Degree in Zoology in 1932. This pushed the limit on her family’s finances though.  She was forced give up her dream of a doctorate after her father suddenly died.  She needed to teach instead to help support her mother and two orphaned nieces. 

Carson taught zoology at the University of Maryland for five years before joining the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1936. She outscored ALL other applicants on the civil service exam and became the second woman hired by the then U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, as an aquatic biologist. She remained there for the next 15 years, writing public radio broadcasts on natural resources during the Great Depression.  She was eventually promoted to Editor-in-Chief of all publications for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

In her free time, she turned from dry government writing to lyric prose. 

Her first book, Under the Sea-Wind (1941), described marine life in elegant, non-technical prose for the average reader. She retained her government job through the 1940s, in part to help support her mother and family. In 1951, she published The Sea Around Us, a history of the oceans.  It became a best-seller, was serialized in the New Yorker, and finally freed her from her financial burdens.

She won a National Book Award for nonfiction which, along with the book’s sales, enabled her to leave her government job in 1953. She moved to Southport Island in Maine.  There she could finally concentrate full time on her writing.  She also began a long relationship with Dorothy Freeman, a summer resident, that was later rumored to be more than just friendship. After 4 years however, Carson was forced to move to back to Silver Spring, Maryland, to care for her aging mother.

In 1955, she published her 3rd book, The Edge of the Sea. These 3 books constituted a biography of the ocean and made Carson a famous writer for the common reader. Embedded within all of her works was the viewpoint that humans were themselves but a part of nature.  What distinguished them was their power to alter it, in some cases irreversibly for the worst.

Then she received a letter from a friend in Massachusetts about the loss of local bird life after pesticide spraying. It stirred Carson to investigate what was occurring.  During the late 1950s, she conducted research into the effects of pesticides on birds, their eggs, and the food chain.  What she discovered changed her life forever.  Disturbed by the reckless use of chemical pesticides, Carson changed her writing focus to warn the public about the long-term effects of pesticides.

She published in her most famous and influential work, Silent Spring, in 1962. 

Rather than introducing readers to nature, the mild-mannered 55-year-old warned they could instead be destroying it.  Carson revealed the damaging effects of the indiscriminate use of chemical pesticides. She focused mainly on the insecticide DDT, which had been called “one of the greatest discoveries of World War II.”  DDT killed the insects that spread malaria and typhus.  It was also routinely sprayed in homes to kill pests AND on crops to kill destructive insects.  She vehemently condemned the indiscriminate use of these pesticides.

Carson called for great caution against these “elixirs of death.” She wrote, “If we are living so intimately with chemicals—eating and drinking them, taking them into our very bones—we had better know something about their power.” The launch of Silent Spring, was carefully strategized by Rachel and her politically savvy literary agent, Marie Rodell.  It included a selection by the Book of the Month Club.

The public’s first glimpse of Silent Spring came in 1962, when The New Yorker ran three excerpts. By the time it was published, the book was in such high demand that it became an instant bestseller. In the first three months, it sold more than 100,000 copies, and in 2 years, more than 1 million. In it, she called for a fundamental change in the way humans viewed their environment.

Rachel Carson, environmentalist and author of Silent Spring
Rachel Carson, environmentalist and author of Silent Spring

Silent Spring primarily focuses on the environment, but a few chapters detailed their impact on humans as well, including cancer. In it, she challenged the practices of agricultural scientists and the government.  She further accused the chemical industry of spreading misinformation, and state and federal officials of blindly accepting industry claims without investigation.

Silent Spring had revealed to the public the dangers of DDT and other pesticides to birds, animals, AND human health. Though the scientific community already knew of the dangers, Carson was the first to make the information accessible and understandable to a new mass audience, the general public. Readers, including middle-class housewives who were using DDT in the homes, were shocked.

She argued “The people have a right to know what they’re being exposed to and what risks are posed.” The book was published at the height of the Cold War, so Carson shrewdly drew a parallel between pesticide contamination and dangers of fallout from the nuclear weapons testing. Carson made the public realize that pesticides could be just as harmful as radiation.

Ironically, Carson had resisted writing the book for years.  She knew personal attacks would come from chemical companies as well as the politicians who had accepted their claims.  It was to be a classic David vs. Goliath saga. She had uncovered industrial misdeeds and courageously sought to hold powerful officials accountable.

Carson was attacked by both the chemical industry and some in government as an Alarmist. 

The reaction from the chemical companies was swift and severe. One spokesperson dismissed Carson’s claims as completely absurd. Others accused her of being  a “Communist” and a “Radical.” The president of the company that made DDT said Carson was “not a scientist, but a fanatic defender of the cult of nature’s balance.”

Fortunately, Carson decided the personal risks were worth it. But it came during a time of great personal challenge.  She was fighting breast cancer throughout the four years she wrote Silent Spring. In the end though, she gave in to a sense of obligation.  She felt she had no choice but to write it.  She courageously spoke out to remind people that humans are a vulnerable part of nature, just like the rest of the fragile ecosystem.

Shortly after her book was published, a reporter asked U.S. President John F. Kennedy at a 1962 press conference if the government would look into the long-term effects of chemical pesticides. He responded, “Yes, and I know we already are. I think, particularly, of course, since Miss Carson’s book.”

The book led President Kennedy to create a Presidential Advisory Commission.  It helped shape a growing environmental consciousness in the sixties. Senator Ernest Gruening from Alaska, said, “Every once in a while, a book has appeared which has substantially altered the course of history.” Supreme Court Justice William Douglas compared the impact of the book on America to Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring testifies before Congress
Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring testifies before Congress

Testifying before Congress in early 1963, Carson called for new federal policies to protect human health and the environment. “The human race is challenged more than ever before to demonstrate our mastery – not over nature, but of ourselves.”  She was roundly hailed, as “the little lady who started it all.” The New York Times wrote in a front-page story: “The $300 million dollar pesticides industry has been highly irritated by a quiet woman author.”

The following April, 15 million viewers tuned in to watch The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson, a CBS TV special.  Carson’s thoughtful responses and calm demeanor, despite her failing health, further bolstered her arguments. She said, “It is the public that is being asked to assume the risks of the pesticide industry. The public therefore must decide whether it wishes to continue on the present road.”

Chemical companies sought to discredit her as a “hysterical woman.”

They pulled their ads from CBS TV.  In May 1963, President Kennedy’s Science Advisory Committee issued its report, which validated Carson’s work. The committee called for more research into health hazards related to pesticides.  It also urged more restraint in their widespread use in homes and fields. Carson received medals from the National Audubon Society and the American Geographical Society, and induction into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

The book, TV program, and presidential committee had solidified pesticides as a major public health issue. Rachel Carson had awakened a new environmental consciousness in the world.  It set the stage for the establishment of EARTH DAY and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1970.  The U.S. EPA regulated use of pesticides, and banned DDT in 1972.

Carson was a proud participant in the new environmental movement that warned about industrial chemicals, species decline and human cancer.  She also worked closely with President Kennedy’s Secretary of the Interior, Stewart Udall and his chief of staff, Paul Knight.  She helped craft legislation, environmental strategy, speeches, and worked to get a federal environmental department … that eventually would become the EPA.

Sadly, her work could not continue.  Now seriously ill with breast cancer, Rachel Carson was further weakened by radiation treatments and severe anemia.  She died of a heart attack in 1964 at just 57, just two years after her book changed the world. She had never married or had children. Her closest friends and colleagues had a quiet, memorial at All Souls Unitarian Church. Her ashes were scattered in the coast of Squirrel Island in Maine, which she loved so much.

In 1973, Carson was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. New activists carried on Carson’s legacy to reach and inspire large audiences. They have testified before Congress, appeared at international treaty negotiations and organized against the environmental causes of cancer. But more importantly, Rachel Carson inspires a strong environmental movement to this day.

In 1980, President Ronald Reagan posthumously awarded her the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom. Her homes are national historic landmarks, and various scientific and writing awards bear her name.  The Sierra Club has a Rachel Carson Society. The University of California named one of its colleges after her in 2016. Two marine research vessels bear her name. And a number of conservation areas in Maine, Maryland, and North Carolina after named after her. 

Rachel Carson became a witness for the beauty, complexity and fragility of all life on earth.  As our global population increases, and our climate changes, she continues to inspire new generations to protect our precious living environment and all its creatures, both below and above the sea.

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The Bizarre Case of Mercy Brown – Vampire or Victim?

Tombstone of Mercy Brown in Exeter, RI, U.S.
Tombstone of Mercy Brown in Exeter, Rhode Island, U.S.

Just over a hundred years ago, residents of Exeter, Rhode Island became convinced that one of their own was returning from the grave to feed on the lives of their own relatives. In 1892, the family of Mercy Brown family started dying off from a terrible sickness, one by one.  The town blamed her – even though by then, she was one of the victims. 125 years later, her undead  vampire legend is still infamous in New England.

In the late 1800’s, rural Exeter was thinly populated, with just around 960 residents in 1890.  Tuberculosis was slowly taking those remaining lives.  “Consumption,” as it was known then, was the leading cause of death in the U.S. in the 19th century.  It was a very unpleasant way to go, often drawn out for a year or more. According to one description of a victim at the time: “the weak, emaciated figure, forehead drenched with sweat, face a livid crimson, eyes sunk, breath laborious, and with a cough so relentless the wretched sufferer barely had time to speak.”

The disease was easily passed between people living in close quarters, which is why it could sweep through entire families. Near the end, the patient would be persistently hacking up of a thick, bloody phlegm.  There was no treatment or cure for tuberculosis at the time. It wasn’t widely known what caused the disease or how it spread. All physicians could recommend was “rest, eating well, and outdoor exercise.”  In 1892, patients had only a 20% chance of survival.

The fear surrounding such a ghastly disease helps explain the terror that swept through Exeter, Rhode Island. The villagers were aware that the Browns, a farming family had a deadly problem. First, George Brown’s wife, Mary, succumbed to the illness. Six months later, his 20-year-old daughter, Mary Olive, also fell sick and died. Within the next several years, his 19-year-old daughter, Mercy Brown, was also dead.

George’s teenage son Edwin, known as Eddie, had been a healthy lad who worked as a store clerk at the Farmer’s Exchange & General Variety Store.  Exeter was shocked when he too became suddenly sick and frail. The county doctor told George Brown that consumption was taking his family, one by one. But the country folk of Exeter had another more sinister suspicion. Residents began to fear that one of the ‘undead’ was causing the Brown deaths. 

This undead “vampire” was believed to none other than the deceased Mercy Brown.

Mercy Lena Brown was born in Exeter in 1872.  Her family, friends and neighbors all called her Lena.  In 1882, her mother, Mary Eliza was the first to succumb to the disease. Mary was a strong woman, used to hard work on the farm with her husband. Despite her stamina, consumption took her in December, 1883.  As was the custom, the whole town turned out for the funeral.

By spring of next year, their oldest daughter, Mary Olive, a 20-year-old dressmaker, began to cough and fade as well. She complained of a crushing weight on her chest, which seemed to be drawing the life out of her as she slept.  She grew pale and gaunt, then too passed away in June, 1884. Tuberculosis commonly consumed entire families, and occasionally even small towns. No one understood that tuberculosis was a communicable disease caused by a deadly bacteria.   

Several years passed until 1889, when Edwin, George & Mary’s only son, began to cough up phlegm tainted with blood. He had terrible dreams of suffocation and drowning.  In the mornings, he said he felt as though the very blood had been drained from his body while he slept . Again, the county doctor had no remedy for what was turning Edwin from a hearty young boy into a pale, frail man.

For the better part of two years, he grew increasingly thin and weak. Friends advised him to travel to Colorado Springs, where a well-known spa-sanitarium would help him regain his vitality.  Edwin took the advice, and headed west with his new wife. It seemed to work a bit as the western climate at least slowed the disease’s progression.

Alleged vampire Mercy Brown at age 18 in 1891
Alleged vampire Mercy Brown at age 18 in 1891

Mercy Brown, who was just a child when her mother and sister died.  She didn’t fall ill until 1891, nearly a decade after they were buried. After a year of suffering, she too died, still unmarried, on January 17, 1892 at only 19.  Edwin came back to Rhode Island when he learned his sister Mercy was dying. On his return to Exeter, Edwin’s health again began to deteriorate rapidly. 

Any progress made while out west quickly disappeared.  During feverish dreams he would cry out that “She was here!” or “She haunts me!” George Brown and Edwin’s wife were distraught.  He’d lost three of his family and it looked like it would soon be four.  Dr. Harold Metcalf of Wickford likely took him aside and was quite blunt.  ‘There is nothing I or any other doctor can do about consumption.’

“He is in the Lord’s hands now.“

Rumors quickly spread through the town of what Edwin said and superstitions took over.  There were some who thought they knew the cause. Several townsfolk kept telling George Brown about an old New England folk tale. The superstition claims that “in some part of a deceased relative’s body, live flesh and blood might be found.  This was supposed to feed on the living relatives who are in feeble health.”  Basically, the myth claims that when members of a family wasted away, it was because one of the undead deceased was draining their life force. 

They’d come to the conclusion that one of the three deceased Brown’s was leaving their grave at night to drain the life out of its family relatives. Caught between heaven and hell, they were sucking the life out of Edwin from beyond the grave.  Only by identifying and ‘killing’ the undead, could young Edwin be saved. 

At first, George Brown did not put much credence in the old-time superstition.  That is, until he grew desperate over Edwin’s rapid deterioration. Citizens of Exeter, urged George for permission to dig up the bodies.  Then they could figure out which one was to blame, and rid Edwin of the evil spirit stealing his life. Out of pure desperation, he reluctantly allowed the bodies of the wife and two daughters to be exhumed.  An examination would be performed by a reluctant Dr. Metcalf.

On a chilly morning on March 17, 1892, a group of Exeter men marched into Chestnut Hill Cemetery behind the Baptist Church with shovels over their shoulders.  They dug down into the cold earth and exhumed the bodies of each family member, one at a time. Neither George Brown, who could not bear to witness it, nor Eddie, who was too ill, was present. In the grave of Brown’s wife Mary, they found a rotting skeleton. In the grave of Brown’s eldest daughter Mary Olive, they found a rotting corpse as well.

Chestnut Hill Baptist Cemetery, Exeter, RI, U.S.
Chestnut Hill Baptist Cemetery, Exeter, RI, U.S.

However, upon opening the wooden casket of Mercy Brown, they all stepped back in horror. The nine-week-old remains of looked startlingly normal and un-decayed. Mercy appeared supernaturally well preserved. Her face appeared flush.  It even seemed that her hair and nails had grown. And when one of the men cautiously prodded the corpse’s chest with a spade, he found liquid blood. This seemed to confirm the local’s fears. 

Mercy Brown must be some kind of undead vampire!

Dr. Metcalf knew why she had died and understood what they saw. ‘She was buried in the coldest months of winter, her remains were frozen when they entered the grave and would not begin to rot until the spring thaw.’  The townsfolk of Exeter were not convinced.  The undead must be killed by having its heart removed and burned to ashes.

They returned to George Brown and asked permission to do so.  You can only imagine the state the poor, desperate father was in.  In a weak voice, he gave his consent.  The townsfolk returned to the cemetery.  Mercy Brown’s dress was torn open and her heart and liver were cut out.  The men gathered firewood and kindled a bonfire on a nearby outcropping of bedrock. They burned the two organs to ashes. 

The story goes that they next decided that to complete the cure, they must feed the ashes of Mercy’s heart & liver to Edwin! Because her heart and liver had blood still in them, locals believed that only by performing this bizarre ritual could Eddie’s life be ultimately saved.

They returned to Edwin Brown’s house with the ashes of his dead sister’s heart.  Doc Metcalf likely counseled George Brown that this was ridiculous superstition and not going to do any good.  As he had said, the fate of Eddie was in the Lord’s hands now.   None of that likely mattered to George Brown.  He would do anything to save his son. George gave his blessing.  They mixed the ashes with water and Edwin’s wife helped him drink down the horrific concoction.

After digging up and tearing up Mercy Brown, the townspeople reburied her heartless body into the grave at Chestnut Hill Cemetery.  Under a weathered tombstone, she now rests in peace. As expected, the consumption continued to consume young Edwin. He died just two months later on May 2, 1892.

The bizarre story does not end there.

Consumption continued to take George Brown’s remaining children until there was only one left. Annie Brown died in August 1895 at the age of 25. Jennie Brown died in October, 1895 at just 18 years old. Myra Brown died a year later in 1899, also at 18 years old.   Only Hattie May Brown, George & Mary’s fifth child survived.  She married and had three daughters of her own.

Ironically, German scientist Robert Koch had discovered the bacteria that caused tuberculosis in 1882.  However, the new “Germ Theory” of disease only began to take hold in the U.S. a decade late.  Too late to save the poor Brown family. Tuberculosis, while rarer today, is still a danger. Just watch any pharmaceutical TV advertisement and listen for the spokesperson whispering about the ‘risk of tuberculosis.’

This was not the first time such a macabre folk remedy had been tried in Rhode Island. There were 18 other documented instances of the exhumation of family members in suspected ‘vampire’ cases throughout New England in the 18th and 19th centuries.  Mercy Brown would be the last however.

But that did not keep Rhode Island from quickly becoming the “Vampire Capital of America.”  The county’s isolated villages became a hotbed of vampire-like rumors for the next 30 years.   An 1896 Boston Daily Globe article describes how oddly prevalent the fears about undead vampires had suddenly become in Rhode Island.

Mercy Brown is further rumored to be the inspiration for Lucy Westerna in Bram Stoker’s 1897 Dracula novel. When the author died, newspaper clippings of the “vampire” Mercy Brown were found in his files.

While Mercy Lena Brown had a very short life, her legacy as the “Last New England Vampire” will live on forever. Today, her Exeter gravesite is popular with curious sightseers and more serious believers, who often leave gifts behind such as red roses, jewelry, and of course, plastic vampire teeth.

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The Conqueror – the Movie that Killed actor John Wayne

American actor John Wayne and an above ground atomic test in Nevada
American actor John Wayne and an above ground atomic test in Nevada

John Wayne’s movie career is filled with dozens of classic films from 1939 to 1976. John Wayne is of course famous for the great American Western.  There’s one movie from his very long career, The Conqueror, that’s believed to be the cause of his death from cancer.  At the height of the Cold War in 1956, The Conqueror was filmed at St. George in southwestern Utah.  It was just over 100 miles downwind from the Nevada Test Site where 11 atomic bombs were exploded the previous year.  The cast and crew were unknowingly exposed to radioactive fallout during their 3 months of shooting.  How could this have happened?

The U.S. military detonated approximately 100 nuclear bombs above ground at the Nevada Test Site from 1951 to 1963. In 1953 alone, they carried out 11 atmospheric nuclear tests as a part of Operation Upshot-Knothole.  The mushroom clouds were tens of thousands of feet high, and desert winds carried radioactive fallout across the Nevada and Utah desert. St. George is just 137 miles (220 km) from the Nevada Test Site. Western Shoshone lands and deep canyons around St. George were covered with layers of deadly nuclear dust. In the summer of 1954, filming began there on The Conqueror. 

The tests had deceptively innocent names like “Nancy, Dixie, and Encore.”  Two of Upshot–Knothole’s tests were particularly dangerous to the people of Utah and deposited long-lasting radiation downwind. The first was “Simon,” a massive 43 kiloton bomb exploded in April 1953.  The second was “Harry,” a 32 kiloton blast that went off a month later in May 1953.  By comparison, the famous first atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima was only 13 kilotons.

“Harry” was 20 kilotons greater than the advisable yield determined by the Atomic Energy Commission’s Chief Medical Officer. Following “Harry’s” detonation, unexpected strong, early-morning winds carried radiation directly east towards populated areas.  On Western Shoshone “Indian” land, they were used to the bright flashes and loud rumbles of atomic testing. 

Native Americans were never warned in advance by the government.  

In St. George, Geiger counters measured 350 milliroentgens that year.  In some cases, they went off the scale of handheld counters.  As the cloud of radioactive fallout blew over the city, school children were at morning recess and mothers hung laundry out to dry.  The people were advised by a radio broadcast to stay indoors for an hour.

Radioactivity would also concentrate in “hot spots” like canyons due to wind patterns. In the weeks following “Simon” and “Harry,” the press began to express concerns.  So the Atomic Energy Commission created a publicity film to convince the public that they were safe, all was good. The AEC never advised those living downwind to avoid consuming vegetables and milk. Both absorbed the radioactive isotopes strontium 90 and cesium 137.  Those isotopes would not have diminished much a year later, when filming began. 

THE CONQUEROR

In one of the worst casting decisions ever made, American John Wayne was cast as the Mongol Emperor Genghis Khan.  He starred opposite Susan Hayward, who played Bortia, a captive princess and love interest for Genghis.  Dick Powell directed the film. Not only was the casting a bad idea, the Hollywood Studio, RKO, also decided that the movie should be filmed in remote St. George, Utah because its rustic scenery was thought to resemble Mongolia.

By the 1950s, it was well known that nuclear explosions produced massive amounts of highly radioactive and potentially lethal fallout. Still, the producers of the film decided to shoot the film near the test site in the remote Utah desert.  From June through August 1954, famous movie producer and aviator Howard Hughes assembled John Wayne, the rest of the cast and crew for his latest “epic” film. 

Much of The Conqueror was filmed in nearby Snow Canyon.

At the time filming took place, AEC authorities labeled the film site as perfectly safe from the harmful effects of radioactive fallout. This was even though abnormal levels of radiation were detected when the area was examined following “Harry.”  So the cast and crew poured into the small desert town, filling every motel and hotel for 3 months. They even cast local Shoshone Native Americans as Mongol warrior extras. They had no idea that Snow Canyon had become a radioactive hot spot.

At the end of the shoot, Hughes and Powell even had 60 tons of the radioactive Snow Canyon dirt shipped back to their studio in Culver City, California.  This was to make reshoots look realistic with the same color and consistency of dirt. Unbeknownst to RKO, radioactive desert sand sat on their back lot for decades, and is now an industrial complex.

Original 1956 movie poster for The Conqueror
Original 1956 movie poster for The Conqueror

The Conqueror depicted a turbulent love affair between the Mongol warrior chief and the beautiful daughter of his worst enemy.  Despite its high-profile cast, the film was a critical and box office bomb – no pun intended. No one bought cowboy John Wayne as a barbarian warlord, nor Hayward as his exotic lover.  The film has been listed as one of the 50 worst movies of all time.

Wayne and Hayward weren’t worried much by the harsh criticism. They were both popular actors and simply continued making movies. Unfortunately, with the dangerous filming location of The Conqueror, their health would never be the same.  John Wayne went on to star in famous Westerns like Rio Bravo, El Dorado, The Cowboys and his last film, The Shootist.  

He played Rooster Cogburn in True Grit, for which he won his only Academy Award for Best Actor.

However, within a few years of filming The Conqueror, unusual medical ailments started appearing in the cast and crew. In 1960, costar Pedro Armendáriz was diagnosed with terminal kidney cancer.  After learning of his condition, he killed himself in 1963. That same year, the film’s director Dick Powell died of lymphatic cancer at the age of 53.

For Susan Hayward, her career abruptly ended 15 years later when she was diagnosed skin, breast and uterine cancer, before ultimately dying of brain cancer.  She died in 1975 at the age of only 56. That same year, costar Agnes Moorehead died of uterine cancer at the age of 74, likely from exposure to high levels of radiation during The Conqueror shoot. Costar Lee Van Cleef died of throat cancer in 1989.

Howard Hughes reportedly felt “guilty as hell” that his production company subjected all those innocent people to the toxic fallout in Utah.  He spent $12 million purchasing every copy of The Conqueror so it would never be seen again.  He supposedly watched it repeatedly in his final days before dying in 1976.

In addition to those working on the film itself, family members who came to visit also had cancer scares. Michael and Patrick Wayne visited their famous father on set.  Both would later have skin cancer and benign tumors removed. Susan Hayward’s son had a benign tumor removed from his mouth.  These could of course have come cigarette smoking which was still very common in the 1950s and 60s.

JOHN WAYNE

So what killed John Wayne?  Wayne spent years fighting lung cancer, first diagnosed in 1964.  He appeared to beat it when the diseased lung and two of his ribs were surgically removed.  Many of his friends tried to convince him that his condition resulted from exposure to fallout radiation during The Conqueror.  Wayne’s two sons visited the set in 1954 and played with Geiger counters around contaminated rocks. He however thought it was due to his two packs-a-day cigarette smoking habit.   

But cancer returned 14 years later when he went in for supposedly routine gall bladder surgery and learned he actually had Stage 4 stomach cancer.  Wayne passed away at the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles in June 1979 at the age of 72. “THE DUKE” was actually born Marion Morrison in Winterset, Iowa.   We’ll perhaps never know for sure if filming The Conqueror resulted in the cancers that killed John Wayne and so many others.  But we do know that filming downwind of a nuclear testing site was certainly a questionable decision.

Map of the Nevada Test Site and Utah
Map of the Nevada Test Site and Utah

Testing has shown that the soil in some St. George canyons likely remained dangerously contaminated until 2007. During the 1970s, leukemia rates in the Western Shoshone Indians and residents of the St. George area were 5 times higher than the rest of the state.  Those affected with cancers came to be known as “Downwinders.” In an attempt to compensate them, Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy sponsored a bill, The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) of 1979.  

However, the bill was never voted on in the U.S. Senate.

By 1990, it was determined that approximately 110 of the 220 people who had worked on The Conqueror had developed some form of cancer, and 49 had died. Given all this evidence, it still cannot be definitively proven that the cancers that killed the cast and crew of The Conqueror were linked to the radioactive fallout at the shooting location.

Doctors from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City believe the majority of the cancer deaths were directly tied to their radiation exposure.  However, the connection between radiation and cancer has been practically impossible to prove conclusively. In a group to 220, doctors would expect only 30 cancers to develop. With half afflicted, the connection to The Conqueror was now highly suspicious rather than merely coincidental.

In 1990, U.S. President George H.W. Bush signed RECA into law. The act provided compensation in amounts between $50,000 and $100,000 to those suffering from leukemia, thyroid cancer, bone cancer, and any other cancer determined by the National Cancer Institute to develop after exposure to low-level radiation. The government expected only a few hundred would apply. Instead, as of 2018, 34,372 claims had been approved, totaling $2,243,205,380.  The amount paid out could have been much higher, since many Downwinders had already died.

In all, the U.S. military conducted 928 nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site between 1951 and 1992. One hundred of them were atmospheric tests, before they switched to underground testing. It is estimated that almost 150 million curies of radioactive fallout was released by the time atmospheric testing ending in 1963. This equates to about 20 times the amount of radiation released during the infamous Chernobyl, Ukraine nuclear explosion and meltdown.

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The Beast of Gevaudan – the Werewolf Origin Story

Statue of the Beast of Gevaudan in Auvers, France
Statue of the Beast of Gevaudan in Auvers, France

In the mid-1760’s, a mysterious wolf-like creature ravaged the countryside of Gévaudan, France. Over 100 men, women and children were savagely killed.  The so-called Bête du Gévaudan, or Beast of Gevaudan, tore out the throats of its victims and mutilated their organs. No one knew what it was — or how to stop it – not even the best hunters in the kingdom.

To this day, no one can agree on exactly what the Beast was.  Other than between 1764 and 1767, something truly viscous stalked humans in the quiet hills of Gévaudan. For three long years, the Beast terrified villagers of this southern region of France.  Many have suggested that the Beast may not have been a wolf at all, but something much worse.

Gévaudan was secluded in the mountains of Margeride in the south of France, largely cut off from the rest of Europe. Life there was quiet and peaceful — until 1764.  That year, a young woman watching her herd of cows claimed that something terrifying attacked her. She described the beast as “like a wolf, yet not a wolf.”  Her dogs fled in fear, but her panicked cattle scared it off.

Two months later, that summer, something attacked and killed a 14-year-old girl, Jeanne Boulet, while she too was watching over her family’s livestock. The villagers initially dismissed these incidents as normal — after all, sheepherding attracted predators. But in August, another girl was killed.  In her last breath, she described the animal as a “une bête horrible,” a horrible beast”

From that point, the Beast’s attacks began to occur regularly.

At the end of August, a young boy watching his sheep disappeared.  His body was found later, torn apart and partially eaten. Four more kills in September convinced the residents of Gévaudan that something was terribly amiss in their province.  An evil, blood-thirsty creature lurked in their midst.

There was no shortage of reports in the Paris press about the deadly encounters with some unknown animal. The bête féroce attacked and partially ate not only women and children, but lone adult men as well. There were so many attacks that some speculated there were in fact two or more beasts.

The creature seemed to target victims’ throats, but also hearts were torn out. Some were even decapitated! The crazed Beast seemed to kill for sport, leaving mutilated, half eaten corpses behind. Even more strangely, the Beast rarely killed livestock. It appeared to have a taste for human blood.

The terrified villagers of Gevaudan did not sit idly by.  Bounties were offered and hunters combed the countryside. Then in October, hours after a mauling, the Beast was seen near Chateau de la Baume, stalking a herdsman. Hunters followed it into the woods and flushed the animal into the fields. The men shot a round of musket fire into the creature.  But after it appeared to fall, the Beast rose and ran off into the woods.  Its hide appeared to be thick enough to repel musket balls!

18th century French depiction of the Beast of Gevaudan
18th century French depiction of the Beast of Gevaudan

The Beast of Gevaudan was described as anywhere between the size of a calf up to a horse. Its hide was thick, its fur a reddish-brown. Some described the beast with a stripe down its back and faint stripes down its sides. The Beast’s tail was said to be long and thick, with a tasseled end, like a lion. The head was described as overly large, with a massive mouth of fangs and a pig-like stoutness. It was an ambush predator that crawled silently on its belly before pouncing on victims.

Villagers superstitiously believed the Beast of Gevaudan was a supernaturally bulletproof loup-garou or werewolf. Another encounter with huntsmen described the beast being shot three times, falling each time, then getting back up. More extraordinary reports claimed the beast could walk on its hind legs and had glowing, fiery eyes!

The people of Gévaudan now prepared a massive response.

Jean-Baptiste Duhamel, the captain of the local infantry, and Étienne Lafont, a regional official, were joined by 300 volunteers to hunt it down.  They scoured the countryside, laid traps with poison bait, and even had some volunteers dress like women. There was now a 6,000-livre bounty on the creature’s head. The men were highly motivated, hungering for the reward money which was equal to an average year’s salary.

But although the group of hunters occasionally stumbled upon the Beast, it proved too smart and powerful to be subdued. A French paper wrote:

“Hunters have neither been able to stop it, because it is more agile than they, nor lure it into their traps, because it surpasses them in cunning. Its terrifying appearance weakens their courage, sets their hands shaking, and neutralizes their skill.”

Duhamel himself described the Beast as having a “chest as wide as a horse, a body as long as a leopard and reddish fur with a black stripe.” Even hunters who came from far and wide had no luck. A father-son team from Normandy, who claimed to have killed over 1,000 wolves, came to Gévaudan. But even they failed to kill it.

Eventually, Duhamel was ordered to give up. Two wolf hunters, Jean Charles d’Enneval and his son, Jean-Francois replaced him. Unlike Duhamel, who formed massive hunting parties, the d’Enneval’s believed in stealth. For the next four months, they slaughtered wolves en masse and made numerous false claims they had slain the beast.

Meanwhile, the Beast’s attacks continued.

A group of seven children in January 1765, led by 10-year-old Jacques Portefaix, were able drive off the Beast with long sticks. Young Portefaix was rewarded by Louis XV with an education paid by the crown. That summer, a young woman named Marie-Jeanne Valet claimed to have impaled the Beast with a bayonet.  It attacked her and her sister while crossing the River Desges. The creature got away, but woman became known as the “Maid of Gévaudan.”

The story of the Beast of Gevaudan, meanwhile, was spreading and covered in newspapers from Brussels to Boston to Bucharest.  The problem got so bad it even attracted the attention of the French king.  Louis XV, convinced the Beast of was too fierce for the locals, sent his personal gunbearer, François Antoine to Gévaudan.  

18th century French depiction of the Beast of Gevaudan
18th century French depiction of the Beast of Gevaudan

At first, the 71-year old Antoine seemed to have succeeded. Antoine brought 18 men in his hunting party and 5 wolfhounds from the Royal Pack. In September 1765, Antoine tracked a pack of wolves into the Pommier forest.  There they came upon a large male wolf near the Abbey of Chazes and killed it.  The wolf measured 6 feet long and 130 pounds.  A typical male wolf is 4 to 5 feet long and only 90 pounds.

They named it Le Loup de Chazes and became heroes to the people of France.  The wolf however, had no human body parts in its stomach.  They had it stuffed nevertheless, presented it to King Louis in Versailles, and collected the reward money.  The villagers were wary, and a few months later, the attacks began again.  In December, no more than two months later, two boys were attacked and killed.  The villages suffered 35 more killings and numerous non-lethal attacks.

The beast seemed fiercer and more fearless than ever.  

It attacked and killed dozens more, stirring up fear and panic in the countryside. The court at Versailles chose to ignore these new attacks, insisting that Antoine had killed the creature. The Beast’s reign of terror finally ended in June of 1767. 

A local nobleman, the Marquis d’Apcher organized yet another hunt. An unlikely hero emerged. A 60-year old local farmer named Jean Chastel shot and killed another huge wolf on the slopes of Mount Mouchet. Chastel, who had been praying the rosary, saw the beast, quickly took aim, and fired. The bullet stunned the beast and the hunting party dogs finally killed it off.

When villagers cut the wolf-like beast open, they found human remains inside. The Beast of Gevaudan seemed to have finally been killed at last. The attacks in fact stopped.  The animal killed was never identified—only described as having a large head, giant mouth, ears and feet, unlike that of a French wolf.  The killings ceased, and Chastel was celebrated as the real Hero of Gévaudan.

The mystery surrounding this macabre story has endured to this day.  Doubts remained that it was indeed a wolf at all, and that it was ever really killed but rather returned to the mountains. So what exactly was the Beast?  No one is entirely sure what terrorized the people of Gévaudan.

Several theories have of course been offered.

The most prominent theory is that the Beast was a large and aggressive Eurasian wolf. The animals are native to the region, and there were thousands of wolf attacks on record. But the witnesses never described just a wolf. A common gray wolf can be ruled out as the French people were familiar with local wolves. Even a rabid one would be easily recognized. And none of the victims that lived contracted rabies.

Other theories suggest the Beast of Gevaudan was an escaped exotic animal, like a hyena or a lion. Most commoners in France would have never seen such an animal, so it would appear like a mythical or even demonic beast. Duhamel even said, “You will undoubtedly think this is a monster, the father of which is a lion. What its mother was remains to be seen.”

So was it a lion, hyena, or tiger? The pig-like head, thick tail, ruddy fur, and black stripe sounds like a hyena, but even the biggest hyena is smaller than the average gray wolf. It is possible that it had been in a person’s private holding and escaped. However, striped hyenas are not known to attack humans.

A lion certainly matches the size of the Beast of Gevaudan and would exhibit the Beast’s predatory behaviors, including preying upon humans as food.   A young adult male does not have a fully mane and sometimes just a mohawk stripe of fur running down its back. However, given the volume of nobles that took part in hunts; at least one would’ve recognized an African lion. The French film, Brotherhood of the Wolf, exploits this particular theory.

Also unrealistic is the theory that the Beast was an extinct prehistoric predator such as a Bear-dog or Dire Wolf.  Bear-dogs, were prehistoric carnivores as large as 1700 pounds. They possessed terrifyingly large jaws, a wolf-like shape, and the heftiness of a bear. Of course these animals are extinct. The idea that such a large animal would evade detection for thousands of years is just too implausible.  Sorry, Bigfoot lovers.

A final theory suggests the Beast was in fact a disguised human.

Perhaps a serial killer terrorized Gévaudan, searching for unaccompanied women and young children.  Many of the victims were ‘ritualistically’ decapitated and organs removed.  Maybe killer roamed about wearing a beast-like costume. Some have speculated that it was an armored dog, which explains why it shrugged off musket shots.  However, in all encounters with the beast; nobody ever claimed they saw anything remotely human.

Statue of the Beast of Gevaudan in Auvers, France
Statue of the Beast of Gevaudan in Auvers, France

There’s no denying the Beast of Gévaudan as the origin of modern werewolf lore. The bullet used by Chastel was supposedly forged of a silver amulet depicting the Virgin Mary. A silver bullet!  This was the first recorded reference to silver bullets however, and the metal was chosen for its religious symbolism, rather than its deadly effect. Many of the French people’s superstitious fears nevertheless believed the Beast was a shape-shifting human, possessed by a demon. 19th century horror novels took this particular idea and ran with it.

The bronze statue in Auvers, France depicts a young Marie-Jeanne Valet, “The Maid of Gévaudan,” burying her spear in the Beast’s chest. It is depicted as a normal, yet massive wolf with a striped mane. Although there are many plausible theories about the true identity of the Beast, all admit that the truth will never be fully known. Without any genetic or forensic evidence, the Beast of Gévaudan is bound to forever remain a legendary mystery.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.
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