The New York Triangle Shirtwaist Fire Killed 146

The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911 in New York City
The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911 in New York City

The Triangle Shirtwaist Company was located on the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of the Asch Building, situated at the corner of Washington Square in New York City’s Greenwich Village.  On 25 March 1911 at 4:40 pm, a fire broke out on the eighth floor, The flames then rapidly consumed both it and the two floors above it. About six hundred people worked there, young, immigrant women and girls mostly from Eastern Europe. In less than an 20 minutes, 146 garment workers had tragically died in the blaze. It was the deadliest industrial disaster in New York state history.  In its aftermath, unions surged and better workplace safety and working conditions were instituted in notorious sweatshop factories.  What exactly happened that terrible afternoon?

In 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Company was a typical American sweatshop with low wages, long hours, and dangerous working conditions. Max Blanck and Isaac Harris owned the shirtwaist factory and delegated much of the hiring to unscrupulous managers. Sweatshops typically attracted poor immigrants and those desperate for employment.  Of the 600 employees, 500 were girls (ages 13-23) – primarily Jews, Italians, Russians, Hungarians, and Germans.

Women's shirtwaist blouse circa 1911
Women’s shirtwaist blouse circa 1911

The International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) had started to organize female workers in the clothing industry. In 1911 though, many garment workers were still unorganized, partly because they were young, immigrant, and female. When the ILGWU led a strike in 1909, demanding higher pay and shorter work days, Blanck & Harris ignored negotiations, instead paying off police to arrest the striking women.

The shirtwaist or women’s blouse was the first American fashion trend to transcend classes.  It was appropriate for working in a factory or attending church on Sunday, a hot commodity replacing the layered and bulky women’s clothing of the prior century. Blanck & Harris employed women working in cramped conditions at rows of cutting tables and sewing machines. Nearly all were teenaged girls who spoke little or no English.

Employees were paid just $7 a week, working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Two freight elevators that ascended to the factory floors, but only one was operational that terrible March day.  There were two stairways that led down to the first floor, but managers kept one locked to prevent thefts and unauthorized breaks by the workers.  The outside fire escape was so narrow it could only be used in single file.  Though there had been smaller fires in the building in 1902 and 1909, Blanck and Harris refused to install sprinkler systems.  After all, there were no city regulations forcing them to do so.

Triangle factory shirtwaist seamstresses in 1911.
Triangle factory shirtwaist seamstresses in 1911.

Many of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory workers were recent European immigrants who had come to the U.S. seeking a better life. Instead, they faced lives of crushing poverty and horrifying working conditions. As recent immigrants, the working poor were ready victims for exploitation by ruthless factory owners. Complaining to managers or talking with a union organizer could get you fired from a desperately needed job.

It was just 5 minutes to closing time, 4:40 pm on a Saturday afternoon, March 25th, 1911, when a fire broke out in the southeast corner of the 8th floor cutting room.  Embers from a discarded match or cigarette ignited a scrap bin filled with flammable fabric cuttings.  ‘Fire!’ the nearest girls shouted, ‘There’s a fire over here!’ A manager rushed over and attempted to use a fire hose to extinguish it.  But the hose was dry rotted and its useless valve rusted shut. As the fire grew beyond the bin, panic ensued. In a cramped space draped with thousands of pounds of fabric, flames easily spread like brush fire.

Within minutes, the floor erupted into madness.  

Terrified girls rushed to the two stairs, the freight elevators, or the fire escape.  The workers could not warn fellow employees on the upper floors as they had no fire alarm they could trigger.  Within just five minutes, the eighth floor was consumed in flames as the fire spread rapidly through the stacks of linens and cottons.

On the street below, New Yorkers realized something was wrong when plumbs of black smoke started to emerge from the building’s upper floors. Bystanders rang the alarm bells in the street-level fire boxes as frantic human figures appeared in the windows above. Four alarms in all were rung in the next fifteen minutes.

The normal way out for workers was the Green Street stairs, where foremen inspected all purses to check for theft. The Washington Place stairs were kept locked by the managers, so only a single stairwell was available to escape.  The girls used the two freight elevators in the mornings, but one of them was not in service that day.  The frantic young women soon realized the sole elevator could hold only 12 at a time.  The harried operator, Joey Zito, was able to make just four trips before it too broke down amid the growing heat and flames.

Their fellow workers on the 9th floor sewing room did not know a fire had even started until it arrived at their feet through the floor boards.  The girls caught sight of the smoke and flames through the windows.  ‘Look, there’s smoke outside! The building’s on fire!’  The hungry flames had arrived for them.  The sewing machines were placed so closely together that there was hardly an aisle between them to run.  Trimmings and cuttings littered the floors and were stacked six feet high against the walls. What spread the fire most quickly were the hundreds of shirtwaists, hanging on lines above the rows of workers. 

Women screamed and ran to the nearest staircase—only to find one filled with choking black smoke and the door of the other locked.  They pounded on the door and shouted for help, but no one came. Others discovered the only working freight elevator was stuck, damaged from the encroaching fire.  That left one route remaining, the external fire escape.  As dozens of desperate women crammed onto it trying to escape the inferno, it began to bend under the weight of so many bodies.  Soon the rickety metal stairs collapsed. 

Amid screams of terror, the girls fell to their deaths onto the streets below.

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory collapsed fire escape.
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory collapsed fire escape.

Those workers on the 10th floor, including the two owners and their staff, had to escape to the roof, rather than go down into the inferno.  Shouts and waving arms from the next building caught their attention.  They were NYU law students who had been dismissed from their tenth story classroom.  Workers were rescued when the boys stretched two wooden ladders across to them.  The lucky employees crawled to safety on their hands and knees, 10 stories above the pavement below.  

The remaining terrified seamstresses on the 9th floor found themselves trapped in the heat and smoke. The door to one staircase was locked and the other blocked by the fire.  The elevators were both inoperable.  The fire escape had collapsed under the weight of so many trying to escape. The terrified girls rushed to the windows and looked down at Greene Street, 100 feet below. There they saw NO fire trucks to save them.  The women used chairs to smash the windows for gulps of cold fresh air.

At this point, many made the terrible decision to jump to their deaths rather than burn alive. One horrified young girl screamed and was the first to jump. Four more were standing beside her.  The crowd below yelled up, “Don’t jump!” but it was leap or be burned to death. All four dropped to their death in unison. The first five girls who jumped did so before the first fire engine could even arrive.

Horrified onlookers could do nothing but watch. “I learned a new sound that day,” wrote reporter William Shepard, “a sound more horrible than description can picture—the thud of a speeding living body on a stone sidewalk.”  Witnesses first thought workers were tossing fabric out the windows, but then realized in shock that workers themselves were jumping.

On the 9th floor inferno, some had rushed to the elevators when the fire escape collapsed. When they found the elevator hopeless as well, a few tried to slide down the greased elevator cables, but quickly lost their grip. Some simply jumped down into the shaft and died once the approaching flames were at their backs.

At the shattered windows, more desperate girls jumped to their deaths.

By the time Pump Engine Co. 20 and Ladder Company 20 arrived, the bodies of victims littered the sidewalk. The firemen had trouble bringing their apparatus into position because of all the corpses which covered the pavement and sidewalks. While more bodies crashed down around them, they worked in desperation to run their ladders into position.

One fireman ran ahead of a hose wagon, spread a 10 foot fire net, and two more seized hold of it. A girl’s body, tumbling end over end, struck the side of it. Three other girls who leaped a moment later, landed on top of her, ripping the net. All four rolled out onto the pavement dead. The force of the fall was simply too great.

Then firemen came to the realization their scaling ladders on the horse-drawn fire trucks could only reached the sixth floor. The water from their hoses could barely reach the top floors. Those pitiful girls watching and waiting at the windows, waving handkerchiefs for the firemen to rescue them also realized they were too high. 

To escape the suffocating smoke and flames at their backs, some 70 girls jumped to their death, 100 feet above the streets.  Many were holding hands, many others screaming with their clothing and hair already aflame.  They struck the sidewalks with water pouring on them too late. Those who chose not to jump died from their terrible burns or smoke inhalation.

Hundreds of people who had rushed in from Broadway and Washington Square screamed in horror as they watched the jumpers. One eyewitness explained “I learned a new sound—one more horrible than description can picture. It was the thud of a speeding body on a stone sidewalk. Thud-dead. Sixty-two thud-deads.” One reporter said, “the remains of the dead, it is hardly possible to call them bodies, because that would suggest something human, collected on the sidewalks.”

As the firemen worked, it became clear the vast majority of bodies were young women. Most workers on the 8th and 10th floors managed to escape. However, the dozens of women and girls working on the 9th floor mostly died. 

Within 18 minutes, it was all over.

Remains of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory after the fire
Remains of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory after the fire

A total of 146 of 500 employees were killed by the fire due to severe burns, smoke inhalation, and injuries sustained during the jumps. A heap of corpses lay on the sidewalk for more than an hour. The firemen were too busy dealing with the fire to pay any attention to people who no longer needed saving.  The soot covered women who stumbled onto the streets were left to relive those agonizing moments and mourn the loss of their coworkers.

Thirty bodies clogged the bottom of the elevator shaft, all girls. Of the one hundred and forty-six victims, six remained unidentified.  The dead included one 13-year-old, two 14-year-olds, three 15-year-olds, seventeen 16- year-olds, and fourteen 17-year-olds. One of the saddest facts was that they had almost finished for the day. In five minutes, their shift would have been over.

In the days that followed, families identified and collected the dead. The ILGWU planned an official day of mourning. The grief-stricken city gathered in churches, synagogues, and the streets. The workers union set up a march on April 5th. Over 80,000 people attended on New York’s Fifth Avenue to honor the victims of the shirtwaist fire and protest the conditions that had led to the deaths.

The Ladies’ Waist and Dress Makers’ Union of the ILGWU planned relief work for the survivors and the families of the victims. In addition, they distributed weekly pensions and secured work and proper living arrangements for the workers after they recovered from their injuries.  The American Red Cross also collected funds from the general public.

Protesting voices then rose up, angry at the lack of humanity and the greed that had made such a horrific disaster possible. The people demanded Amends, Justice, and Action to improve the unsafe conditions in sweatshops. Workers flocked to unions to offer testimonies, support unionization, and demand that Harris & Blanck be brought to trial.

“Justice!” they cried. “Where is justice?“

NYC authorities started an investigation as to how such a firetrap could exist. It intended to find out if the present laws covered such cases, and if they did not to frame laws that would. The building had experienced four recent fires and had been reported by the Fire Department as unsafe.  Wealthy businessmen however defended the rights of factories to resist government regulatory overreach.

Triangle Shirtwaist factory owners Max Blanck and Isaac Harris
Triangle shirtwaist factory owners Max Blanck and Isaac Harris

Triangle Shirtwaist owners Blanck & Harris publicly declared that their brick building was classified as “fireproof,” and had just been approved by the Dept. of Buildings.  The owners maintained that their factory was a “model of cleanliness and sanitary conditions, second to none in the country.” Yet reports that the doors to the stairs were locked prompted the District Attorney to seek an indictment against the owners.

On April 11, a grand jury indicted Harris & Blanck on seven counts and charged them with second degree manslaughter. Survivors testified to their inability to open the locked stairway doors. In December however, a jury acquitted Blanck & Harris of any wrong doing. Despite evidence that the owners had been horribly negligent, their defense had been that they were unaware the doors were locked and it was the fault of the foremen. Grieving families and much of the public felt that justice had not been done.

Victim’s families brought twenty-three civil suits against the owners. In 1914, three years after the fire, Harris and Blanck settled. They paid just 75 dollars per life lost in the 23 families, a fraction of the $400 per death that they were paid by their insurer. In 1913, the factory was found littered with rubbish piled six feet high, with cloth scraps kept in flammable baskets. The judge fined them just 20 dollars and merely issued a stern warning. The Triangle Shirtwaist Company went out of business in 1918.

The New York City Triangle Shirtwaist fire forced a reckoning over building codes and workplace safety in the country.  There was no city regulation requiring fire drills, sprinklers or fire escapes. Such innovations were not available in most factories.  New York created a commission to investigate factory conditions and public safety. The state passed 38 new laws included requiring improved fire safety; limited working hours, and better eating and bathroom facilities. The city established the Bureau of Fire Investigation, giving the fire department powers to improve factory safety.

The labor movement also grew stronger in the wake of the disaster. At a memorial meeting after the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, union leader Rose Schneiderman issued an indictment of a public that she felt had turned a blind eye to dangerous sweatshops: “I would be a traitor to these poor burned bodies, if I came here to talk good fellowship. … Too much blood has been spilled.”

Labor advocate Frances Perkins, witnessed the shirtwaist factory fire and heard Rose Schneiderman’s fiery speech at the memorial. She led the New York Factory Investigating Commission. Years later, she brought her commitment to using government power to protect workers when President Franklin D. Roosevelt made her Secretary of Labor—the first ever woman cabinet member in the U.S.

After the 1911 fire, the Asch building was refurbished and sold to Frederick Brown, who rented it to nearby New York University.  The Brown Building still stands today in lower Manhattan and was added to the National Register of Historic Places and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1991. On March 25, 2011, a march was held in Greenwich Village to commemorate the 100th Anniversary. At 4:40pm, hundreds of church bells rang out throughout the city to honor the fallen dead.

Click BOOKS for more by historical writer Paul Andrews.
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Podcast: The Tragic Story of the Radium Girls

Radium clocks and watches were all the rave during the Roaring Twenties. The watch faces glowed all the time and didn’t require charging in sunlight, like florescent paint. Everyone who was anyone had to have one. The Radium Girls were not rich debutants who flashed their wristwatches, but rather the simple factory women who hand painted the radioactive radium onto the clock faces. Many of them paid the ultimate price with their own lives.

Radium Girls painting clock faces in New Jersey circa 1920
Radium Girls painting clock faces in New Jersey, circa 1920
For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS
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France’s Chevalier d’Eon, the First Trans Aristocrat

The French Chevalier d'Eon as a woman
The French Chevalier d’Eon as a woman

When the Chevalier d’Eon left France in 1762, he was a diplomat, a spy, a Dragoon captain, and a man. When she returned in 1777, at the age of 49, she was a celebrity, a writer, a fencer, and a woman—by declaration by the government of France.

Chevalier d’Eon was born Charles d’Eon de Beaumont, and in mid-life changed genders to a woman, Charlotte. d’Eon’s military exploits in the Seven Years’ War, diplomatic role in the Treaty of Paris, and service as a spy for King Louis XV was all overshadowed by being the first trans aristocrat. Born biologically a male, the Chevalier was legally declared female by French King Louis XVI and the English courts.  She spent the last 33 years of her life as a woman.

Why the gender change in an age when such a thing was unheard of? The answer is complex, involving intrigue, politics, celebrity, and feminism. The true meaning behind d’Eon’s transformation has been guessed at for centuries.  Some modern trans groups have adopted her and named themselves in d’Eon’s honor.

Charles-Geneviève-Louis-Auguste-André-Timothée d’Eon de Beaumont was born in 1728 to a minor aristocrat family in Tonnerre, Burgundy.  After an uneventful childhood, he completed his studies at Collège Mazarin with a law degree.  At 21, d’Eon’s family secured him a position in civil service. He steadily climbed the ranks and in 1756, became secretary to the French ambassador to Russia.

Then in 1756, the Seven Years’ War erupted between Britain and France. d’Eon served as a Captain of Dragoons and earned a reputation as a courageous soldier who was even wounded in battle. By year’s end though, d’Eon was recruited for le Secret du Roi, or the King’s Secret.  It was a network of French spies working directly for King Louis XV.  

Upon entering the spy service, d’Eon’s life would never be the same. 

As Secretary of the Embassy in St. Petersburg, d’Eon was charged with fostering good relations with the Russian court of Tzarina Elizabeth.  This role, however, was just a cover. Secretly, the King tasked d’Eon with gathering intelligence in the court of the Tzarina.

Charles d’Eon was charming, clever, and hardworking.  While there, the Tzarina routinely threw “Metamorphosis Balls” where men dressed as women and women as men. Such cross-dressing was much more socially accepted then and it would have a profound effect on young Charles d’Eon. 

As the war dragged on, France’s losses on the battlefield and debt mounted. In 1762, the King sent d’Eon to London as part of a diplomatic team to negotiate peace with Britain. The Treaty of Paris was signed in 1763.  d’Eon was rewarded for his role with the Order of Saint-Louis, a huge honor for a man of just 35.  It came with a generous pension and the French title of Chevalier, or “Sir.”

Desperate for revenge against King George, King Louis regrouped the Secret with a new purpose: plan to invade Britain. The foreign ministry named d’Eon minister plenipotentiary, with the status of interim ambassador to the British court.  This was an excellent cover for his spying activities – directing a survey of the English coast to find a good point for an invasion.

Career-wise, things were looking up. But within months, it would all begin to crumble. Chevalier d’Eon had expensive tastes and was enjoying a luxurious lifestyle in London.  Plus, he was only the interim ambassador. The real ambassador, the Comte de Guerchy, would arrive within the year, when d’Eon would be demoted to secretary. A frustrated d’Eon found the whole situation untenable. He let his superiors at Versailles just know that in a series of angry lettres.

Just 6 months after his appointment, d’Eon was fired for insolence.

A young Chevalier d'Eon as a man
A young Chevalier d’Eon as a man

He was to return to Versailles for further disciplining.  d’Eon boldly decided that he was not going to obey. Why should he return and possible be sent to the Bastille?  He knew that his position as a spy in the Secret du Roi afforded him the King’s protection. The French Foreign Ministry then publicly ordered d’Eon be deported back to France.  The British foreign minister refused, stating that d’Eon was free to stay.

When the King heard that d’Eon refused to return, he froze d’Eon’s pension. The French Ministry then made several attempts to kidnap and send him back or France. An increasingly desperate and angry Chevalier made a daring and dangerous move: Blackmail Versailles.

d’Eon threatened to tell everything he knew about le Secret if his position was not restored. In 1764, he fired a warning shot and published a scandalous book, Lettres, mémoires et négociations particulières du chevalier d’Éon, the first of several promised volumes.  He leaked all his private diplomatic correspondence since being named secretary in Russia, embarrassing many powerful figures in Versailles.

Suddenly Chevalier d’Eon was talked about by ministers, in newspapers, cafes, and salons. The publication was tantamount to treason, yet the King had to be careful given d’Eon’s secret role as spy. The promise of further volumes was a blatant threat and it worked. Behind all the bad press, now that he was declared a public enemy of France, this made him even more useful as a spy.  

Louis XV had given d’Eon a lifelong pension of 12,000 livres a year and allowed to stay in England in exchange for reports about British politics.  He was ‘formally’ forbidden from returning to France. d’Eon’s next volumes in his scandalous tell-all series never appeared.  He spent the next decade in “exile” in London, while still serving his King. 

Meanwhile, rumors were swirling that the Chevalier was in fact a woman.

Due to his fair features and effeminate nature, tabloids portrayed d’Eon as half man, half woman. Rather than refute the statements, he claimed it was no one’s business and refused to publicly reveal his gender, prolonging the debate for years. The London Stock Exchange even began taking bets on the Chevalier’s sex.

While the publication of his book made him a celebrity, the speculation around his gender made d’Eon a household name. Mentions of the controversy have been even found in letters from the King Louis XV, who wrote to a general in 1770: “Do you know that d’Eon is in fact a woman?” In Paris, the scandal was getting too big for the French government to ignore. Was the Chevalier actually a Chevalière?

By now, many in Versailles began to believe Chevalier d’Eon was secretly a woman. The rumors and gossip were enough that in 1771, London bookmakers started taking bets on his gender—3:2 odds that he was a woman. The publicity did have its downsides.  d’Eon could not leave his house without bodyguards, as there were demands to settle the matter and see him naked. 

In 1772, a French secretary in the le Secret came to London to investigate d’Eon personally.  He left a month later, convinced that d’Eon was in fact a female dressed as a male. From that point on, the French government took it as fact that the Chevalier was indeed a woman.  It is unknown whether he ever had a sexual partner, and if so, what sex they were.

When Louis XV died in 1774, Louis XVI, wanted the Secret du Roi abolished. He saw no utility in having two foreign policies, one public and one secret.  Moreover, the new king no longer wanted to invade Britain. It remained to be seen how young Louis XVI would deal with d’Eon.  The chevalier’s fate was again in jeopardy.

In 1775, Pierre Beaumarchais, a representative of the French government, went to London to negotiate his return to France.  Chevalier d’Eon told Beaumarchis a fictional tale that he had been born female, but forced into the role of a boy by a tyrannical father who wanted a son. This story would enable him to retire from le Secret and return to France, a ‘heroine.’  One who had dressed up as a man in service to Louis XV.

Chevalier d’Eon agreed to sign The Transaction.

He would give up all his secret papers and return to France ASAP. Versailles knew if the secrets d’Eon possessed were ever revealed, England might go to war with France again. The king agreed to pay some of his debts and restore his pension.  AND he would publicly recognize d’Eon as a woman.  The Chevalier thereafter agreed to dress as a woman for the rest of his life. 

Strangely, the Transaction worked, Chevalier d’Eon could finally return to France. The Chevalier was still wearing male clothes in Britain. He arrived wearing his Dragoon captain’s uniform. The King commanded Marie-Antoinette’s personal dressmaker to create a new wardrobe for d’Eon. The transition was not easy as he thought. d’Eon complained, “It is more difficult to equip an elegant lady of court than a company of Dragoons from head to foot.”

d’Eon was finally able to embrace womanhood. In 1777, Mademoiselle la Chevaliere d’Eon was formally presented at Versailles, “reborn” in an elaborate dress, powdered hair, and heavy make-up.  By then, French society had heard the story d’Eon told Beaumarchais and accepted it, hailing her as a heroine akin to Joan of Arc.  She was sought out by the likes of Voltaire, Rousseau and even Ambassador Benjamin Franklin.

A middle-aged Chevalier d'Eon as a woman
A middle-aged Chevalier d’Eon as a woman

But the reality of life as a woman was disappointing in one respect, her political voice was now muted. When France joined the American War of Independence in 1778, d’Eon petitioned the government to allow her to wear her Dragoon captain’s uniform and go to the war for France. The war ministry refused her request.  When d’Eon continued to publicly make demands, she was briefly thrown into a dungeon in the Chateau Dijon for 19 days.

Every further political effort d’Eon made would be quashed by the French government.  It eventually forced her into retirement on her family estate in rural Tonnerre. In 1785, she moved back to England, seeking freedom once again from the controlling French government.  Britain welcomed her back as a heroine.

Then the French Revolution erupted 1789 and Louis XVI was beheaded. 

d’Eon’s family estate in Tonnerre was seized by the new republic. With the King’s Transaction nullified, she was left with in England with no pension and no home to return to. In London, d’Eon was often broke and supported herself by participating in fencing matches publicly, a sight that drew large crowds to see her.

By 1791, d’Eon, now in her 60s, and resorted to selling her personal book collection to make ends meet. Her sword-fighting career lasted until 1796, when she was badly injured during a tournament and had to retire. She was forced to share a flat with another elderly woman, a widow named Mrs. Cole. The once famous d’Eon became a virtual shut-in and saw very few people, often too ill to leave her bedroom.

There, D’Eon began writing her memoirs, which were not published in her lifetime.

“What I am writing is not for the feeble souls of this century,” d’Eon wrote. “How much I have suffered in both body and soul. All that I know for certain is that my transformation has made me into a new creature.”

She died on 21 May 1821, at the age of 81. Mrs. Cole made a shocking discovery when she went to dress her friend’s body for burial. The woman was actually a man! She was so shocked, she called in a physician, who determined that d’Eon was biologically male. d’Eon’s 1821 obituary described her as a “political character” remembered for her “questionable gender.” That narrative dominated d’Eon’s legacy in the 19th century. 

d’Eon had collected books on famous women throughout history eventually amassing one of the largest collections of feminist writing in Europe.  Women, d’Eon believed, were more morally superior to men.  She believed that whether anyone lives as a man or a woman was a personal choice. 

More modern ideas about sexuality reframe d’Eon as not a political character, but rather as someone who was simply exploring her gender identity.  d’Eon is still a popular figure today in music, plays, anime, gaming, and pop culture. She is regarded today as a founding figure in the LGBTQ+ transgender community.

In d’Eon’s 18th century beliefs, gender was fluid; one can make a decision about which to choose. The arguments we have in the 21st century about what trans people should be allowed to do, OR that society should not be making that decision for them, this is right out d’Eon’s playbook. Perhaps the Chevalier d’Eon was simply a person born 240 years ahead of her time.

Click BOOKS for more by historical writer Paul Andrews.
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The World War II Battle of Los Angeles

Search and artillery fire during the Battle of Los Angeles, February 1942
Search lights and artillery fire during the Battle of Los Angeles, February 1942

During the panicked weeks following the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Americans were told that enemy raids on the continental U.S. could be next!  On the West Coast, pilots and radar had started mistaking fishing boats and even whales for Japanese destroyers and submarines. Two months after the Pearl Harbor attack, on 25 February 1942, residents of Los Angeles woke up to air raid sirens, bright searchlights crisscrossing the night sky, and thunderous explosions in the air. The Battle of Los Angeles has begun.

Civil defense ordered all city lights extinguished. As artillery exploded overhead, it filled the air with smoke and scattered shrapnel across the city.  Dressed in robes and pajamas, confused citizens stood in their yards, squinting at the night sky, seeing what looked like a battle raging above their heads. The loud booms of more than 1,400 rounds of ammunition shells exploded in the night sky.  Panic and chaos reigned in streets – the Japanese must be attacking Los Angeles!

By the time the “all clear” was given at dawn, five people were dead, many injured, and dozens of houses damaged by falling shells. What the military did not find was any downed enemy aircraft … because there had not been any to begin with.  They had fired for two hours at nothing but thin air. The “Battle of Los Angeles,” left California, and the country, shaken.   

How did such a major blunder happen?

On December 7th, 1941, the U.S. Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor was hit by a surprise attack from the Japanese Navy.  Twenty-one ships were sunk or damaged and 2,403 Americans lost their lives.  The United States had been it on its home turf.  Los Angeles, a major center for military manufacturing, feared it would be hit next.  Tensions were high after U.S. Secretary of War Henry Stimson warned Americans that cities should be prepared to accept “occasional blows” from the enemy.

The U.S. government and military then began to view its own Japanese born citizens with suspicion and paranoia. On 19 February 1942, President Roosevelt signed an Executive Order allowing the internment of all first and second generation Japanese Americans.

Then on 23 February 1942, a Japanese submarine surfaced off the coast of Santa Barbara, California.  It fired over a dozen artillery shells at the Ellwood oil field and refinery on-shore. While the attack caused only minor damage, and no one was injured, it marked the first time that the continental U.S. had been bombed during World War II.

This small Japanese attack was a victory of psychological warfare.

The Japanese military made it clear that all the West Coast could potentially be attacked at any time. Naval intelligence instructed military units on the California coast to ready themselves for another potential Japanese raid. The day after the oil field bombing, the Battle for Los Angeles began. 

At 7:18 p.m. on February 24th, just 24 hours later, Army coastal radar installations detected objects over a 100 miles off the coast, moving rapidly toward Los Angeles. Coastal command called for a military “yellow alert.” But then at 10:33 pm an “all clear” sounded. All remained calm for the next few hours. 

Then, shortly after 2:00 am on February 25th, military radar again picked up what appeared to be an enemy contact some 120 miles west of Los Angeles. Air raid sirens sounded for the first time and a citywide blackout was put into effect. Within minutes, troops manned anti-aircraft gun batteries and began sweeping the skies with bright searchlights. The Battle for Los Angeles was on!

It was just after 3:00 am when the firing began.  Following reports of an unidentified object in the skies, troops in Santa Monica unleashed a barrage of anti-aircraft and .50 caliber machine gun fire. Before long, many of the city’s other coastal defense weapons, hearing the big guns, had joined in the barrage.

“Powerful searchlights from countless stations stabbed the sky with brilliant probing fingers,” the Los Angeles Times later wrote, “while anti-aircraft batteries dotted the heavens with beautiful, if sinister, orange bursts of shrapnel.”

Chaos and panic reigned for the next several hours. It appeared that Los Angeles was under attack, yet many who looked skyward saw nothing but smoke and the glow of shell fire.  A mixture of paranoia and imagination revealed threatening shapes in the sky, even though NO planes of any type were actually there—friend or foe.

According to one conversation reported in the LA Times, one observer speculated, “Maybe it’s just a test.” In response, another onlooker said, “Test, hell! You don’t throw that much material into the air unless you’re fixing on knocking something down.”

For many, the threat appeared to be very real.

Reports poured in from across the city describing Japanese aircraft, bombs falling, and even enemy paratroopers! There was even a claim of a Japanese plane crash in the streets of Hollywood. “I could barely see the planes, but they were up there all right,” coastal artilleryman Charles Patrick later wrote. “Naturally, all of us fellows were anxious to get our two-cents’ worth in and, when the command came, we fired.”

The barrage continued for over almost two hours. By the time a final “all-clear” order was given at dawn, Los Angeles artillery batteries had fired over 1,400 rounds of anti-aircraft ammunition into the night sky. Then in the light of day, military units made an embarrassing discovery: there appeared to have been NO enemy attack.

Nevertheless, the military’s Western Defense Command on the ground in Los Angeles stated, “The aircraft which caused the blackout in the Los Angeles area for several hours have not yet been identified.”

The only damage during the Battle of Los Angeles had come from American fire. Anti-aircraft shrapnel had rained down across LA, through some house rooftops and shattering windows. One dud artillery shell landed on Long Beach golf course and embedded itself in a fairway.  Another dud landed in the Santa Monica driveway of Mr. George Watson.  Soldiers blocked off the street with stark warning signs: “Danger Unexploded Ordinance.”

Battle of Los Angeles newspaper headlines, February 1942
Battle of Los Angeles newspaper headlines, February 1942

Surveying the city the next morning, LA reporters documented the damage of “The Great Los Angeles Air Raid.” Five people were killed. Two of them had suffered heart attacks during the blackout. Three were killed in car accidents, including one police officer.  The overhead barrage had distracted frantic drivers looking to the sky. In a preview of the hysteria soon to come, authorities arrested 20 Japanese-Americans for violating the blackout and allegedly trying to signal the nonexistent aircraft.

Some Los Angeles residents had their homes partially destroyed.

In three cases, people’s bedrooms were hit either by fragments or exploding shells.  Luckily they had gone outside to watch the spectacle in their skies. One farmer spent hours rounding up his stampeding herd of cattle after an explosion killed one of his cows. As cleanup continued, it became clear that every bomb that had fallen on LA had been fired by the U.S. military.  

Yet there were still the hundreds of soldiers and civilians who claimed to have seen aircraft.  Many eye witnesses claimed to have witnessed a slow-moving, balloon-like object, most visible when “caught in the center of the search lights. Others described seeing anywhere from dozens to “hundreds” of high-flying planes amongst the shrapnel, illuminated by the searchlights and explosions.

Per a declassified military report from February 1942, “At 0243 the Gun Officer reported unidentified planes between Seal Beach and Long Beach.  At 0306 a balloon carrying a red flare was reported over Santa Monica and fired upon on orders of the Controller. A total of 482 rounds of 3″ shells were expended at the planes … without visible result.”

The same report goes on to list aa craft appearing over Long Beach, and other areas, each time eliciting hundreds of rounds of ammunition fire. In total, the report lists more than 16 military eyewitness describing everything from weather balloons to 30 Japanese planes flying in a menacing V formation over the city.

A later statement from the Army’s Western Defense Command stated: “Although reports were conflicting and every effort is being made to ascertain the facts, it is clear that no bombs were dropped and no planes were shot down.” From Washington, Navy Secretary Frank Knox admitted at a press conference that it was all just a false alarm and there were no planes over Los Angeles that night.

Knox blamed the incident on “jittery nerves.”

US Secretary of War Henry Stimson
US Secretary of War Henry Stimson

Over the next few days, government and press issued contradictory reports. Secretary of War Henry Stimson said that at least 15 planes had buzzed the city and the actions taken were justified. He even promoted a theory that they might have been commercial aircraft “operated by enemy agents.” Stimson later backtracked on this claim. 

On February 26th, the Los Angeles Times published an editorial titled: “Information, Please: More specific public information should be forthcoming from the government, if only to clarify their own conflicting statements.”

One article in the February 26th LA Times reported: “One official source said American planes quickly went into action. Another said no United States Army planes took off because of the danger from their own anti-aircraft fire.”

In Washington, President Franklin Roosevelt was equally unsatisfied.  He received a report from Army Chief of Staff George Marshall that “as many as 15 planes may have been involved,” some of them possibly commercial. The lack of wreckage remains proof of no attack as it is doubtful any aircraft could have survived the volume of explosions across the night sky. The most logical explanation is that early radar technology and nervous, trigger-happy soldiers produced the false alarm.

Over the decades, a series of bizarre conspiracy theories involving the government, military and, you guessed it, even flying saucers and extraterrestrials sprouted up like mushrooms. Thanks to years of embarrassed government silence, conspiracy theorists were almost gifted the Battle of Los Angeles. It was just one more fantasy story to come out of Southern California’s Hollywood region. 

Regardless, the Battle of Los Angeles offered stark evidence of the fear and vulnerability that most Americans felt during World War II.  After the war ended, the Japanese government stated it had never sent any aircraft over the continental U.S. The “Great Los Angeles Air Raid” soon faded into obscurity.  

In 1983, the Office of Air Force History noted that meteorological balloons had been released prior to the barrage to help determine wind conditions. Their lights and silver coloring could have triggered the alerts. Once the shooting began, the searchlights, smoke and anti-aircraft flak led gunners to believe they were firing on Japanese planes, even though none existed. As long as the night sky was clouded by smoke, soldiers believed the Japanese were still there and kept firing until dawn revealed no planes.

That explanation, however, was hardly the sort of thing the government wanted to admit to, or the public wanted to hear. A few reporters noted that it was appropriate that the incident had taken place near Hollywood. The New York Times wrote that as the “world’s preeminent fabricator of make-believe,” Hollywood played host to a battle that was “just another illusion.”  In fact, the Steven Spielberg movie comedy, “1941,” starring Dan Aykroyd, exploited the Battle of Los Angeles for its comic absurdity.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS
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The Daring Harriet Quimby, Queen of the Air

Female Aviator Harriet Quimby
Female Aviator Harriet Quimby, 1912

Most everyone knows the name Emilia Earhart, the famous female pilot lost at sea in 1937.  But few remember another ground-breaking female aviator named Harriet Quimby.  She was famous a decade before, and was an inspiration to, Emilia Earhart.

Today, only aviation buffs know that Quimby was the first American woman to earn a pilot’s license, the first to fly at night, and the first woman to fly solo across the English Channel.  Sadly, her short public life as “Queen of the Air” lasted less than a year before she died in a tragic plane crash.  Who was this inspirational and daring woman?

Harriet Quimby was born in Coldwater, Michigan, in 1884 and grew up in Arroya Grande, California in a poor family.  Her mother taught her self-confidence and encouraged her to believe that she could succeed in any endeavor, regardless of her sex.  Harriet relied on her wit and talents to accomplish what few women of her time dared even dream about becoming an aviator.  Beautiful and well-poised, many presumed she was from a wealthy family and well-educated. Quimby did nothing to deny these assumptions and carried on the charade her entire life.

Harriet’s public career began in 1902, when she began writing for two San Francisco newspapers, a career few women entered at that time.  She drove a yellow automobile around town, quite a unique sight since motorcars were relatively rare at the time. In 1903, at only 20, she moved to New York City where Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly hired her as editor of the women’s page.  Unmarried, she lived with her widowed mother in New York City’s Hotel Victoria.

Her love of aviation began in 1910.

She witnessed an international aviation meet flown around New York harbor and the Statue of Liberty.  Harriet became captivated by both the flying machines and John Moisant, the young and wealthy pilot who won the race. That evening, she saw Moisant having dinner at the Hotel Astor and boldly asked him to teach her to fly. The man grinned and agreed, primarily due to her attractiveness, not really taking her seriously.  However, before she could begin any lessons, Moisant died in a plane crash a week later at a race in New Orleans.

Undaunted, Harriet enrolled in the new Moisant Aviation School, learning to fly Moisant monoplanes, copies of the French Blériots.  Quimby took her flight lessons at dawn before her day job at the magazine. Females entering male dominated aviation was absolutely unheard of.  In the early 1900’s, women were not supposed to step out of their assigned roles in society. Nevertheless in 1911, after 4 months and 33 lessons, she obtained her pilot’s license in Long Island after two test flights. She became the first American woman and second female ever to receive a pilot’s license.

A newspaper account of the day noted that ‘the Aero Club, despite its misgivings, was forced to make the award owing to the splendid flying of Miss Quimby.’  The press dubbed her the “China Doll” because of her fair skin and petite stature.  The ambitious Quimby quickly capitalized on her new fame. After all, pilots could earn as much as $1,000 at an air show performance.  Race meet prize money could go as high as $10,000!

Quimby joined the Moisant International Aviators team.  She won headlines again by making her public debut at a moonlight flight over Staten Island before more than 20,000 spectators.  She earned $1,500, a small fortune at the time.  Quimby’s flying had won the approval of her bosses at Leslie’s Weekly. She continued to contribute to Leslie’s and wrote accounts of her flights for the magazine. In September, she beat the leading French aviatrix, Helene Dutrieu, in a cross-country air race.

“The men flyers have given the impression that aeroplaning is perilous work, something that an ordinary mortal should not dream of attempting. But when I saw how easily the man flyers manipulated their machines, I said I could fly too.” -Harriet Quimby

Quimby capitalized on her femininity.  Her flight costume was all the rage: trousers tucked into high-laced tan boots, a plum-colored, long-sleeved satin blouse, choker collar and a flying hood – all designed by Quimby herself. This outfit, then considered risqué, soon became a fashion trend.  Her fans called her the “Doll Aviatrix” because of her dashing, yet feminine, image.  She drew crowds whenever she competed or toured with airshows across the U.S.

A darling of the press, Harriet Quimby’s sparkling personality and graceful elegance earned her praise as ‘lovable,’ ‘irresistible,’ ‘charming’ and ‘intelligent.’   One columnist called her ‘a glamorous, green-eyed beauty.’  She was indeed considered a radical woman in her day – she smoked cigarettes, owned a motor car, flew an aeroplane, traveled alone, and had a career as a writer.  

Harriet Quimby Vin Fiz advertisement
Harriet Quimby Vin Fiz advertisement

Passionate about being an aviator, she even went so far as to tout that flying was an ideal sport or even occupation for women.  The Vin Fiz Company used Quimby to advertise its new grape soda, Vin Fiz. She appeared in posters, magazines, and billboards in her distinctive purple aviator uniform.

Desiring global fame next, Quimby decided to attempt a crossing of the English Channel.

The feat had already been accomplished by Louis Bleriot in 1909, but never by a woman. Quimby offered Leslie’s magazine exclusive rights to her first-person account of the proposed flight. She obtained a letter of introduction to French aviator Louis Blériot and in 1912, sailed for England. Meeting Blériot in Paris, she convinced him to loan her one of his new 60-hp Blériots for her historic flight.

For Quimby, this would be her first flight in a Blériot, first with a compass, and first across water.  A worried group of friends and colleagues saw Quimby off early on Tuesday, April 16, 1912.  On a cold spring morning, the adventurous pilot climbed aboard the French Bleriot monoplane, waved to her fans, and began her daring flight from Dover to Calais.

Airborne at 9 AM, Quimby climbed to 2,000 feet before heading out over waters of the English Channel. She caught a brief glimpse of the London Daily Mirror‘s boat, jammed with reporters and photographers, before running into an unexpected fog bank. What should she do now? Turn back or go forward? Even a minor error could send her wandering above the North Sea or the Atlantic. 

“In an instant, I was beyond the cliffs and over the Channel. I could not see ahead of me at all, nor could I see the water below.  There was only one thing for me to do, keep my eyes fixed on my compass.”

She climbed through the fog to 6,000 feet, seeking clear sky, but found only a skin-shivering cold. Keeping a close watch on her compass, she dropped down to 200 feet for the remainder of the flight.  When her plane finally broke clear of the fog, Harriett squinted against the rising sun. She sighed in relief as she could see the shores of France ahead. Harriet sighted a deserted stretch of flat, sandy beach and landed. She was quickly surrounded by excited French fishermen and villagers.

The crossing took a nerve-wracking 59 minutes as Quimby landed 25 miles south of Calais.

Her achievement went largely unnoticed however in the next days’ Paris and London papers. Quimby’s daring feat was overshadowed by the tragic sinking of the RMS Titanic just two days earlier in the North Atlantic.  Nevertheless, Harriet Quimby was now the official ‘Queen of the Air,’ and feted in London and Paris before returning to the U.S. a bon-a-fide celebrity.

Quimby was in love with flying and continued performing at air shows and competing in air meets throughout the U.S. She published more than 250 articles in her parallel profession as a journalist. Unfortunately, her short flying career ended weeks later on July 1, 1912, just three months after her Channel crossing.

She had entered the 1912 Harvard-Boston Meet at Harvard Field in Squantum on Dorchester Bay.  Monday evening, July 1st, just before 6 pm, with the competitive events of the day over, Harriet took off on a short flight with William Willard, the meet’s wealthy manager.  The flight would be a great advertisement for his show as he had invested heavily in it.  Harriet never turned down an offer that promised more publicity for herself.

After taking off, they headed east toward the Boston Light. Quimby sat in the front cockpit of a new 70-hp Blériot monoplane, Willard rode in the rear cockpit. Returning from the Light 20 minutes later, the crowd watched as Quimby’s plane descended in a steep glide. Then suddenly, she slanted sharply down and turned hard to the left.  The horrified spectators witnessed Willard fall out, clear over the nose of the plane, followed a few seconds later by Quimby herself!  Both plunged into the shallow river 1,000 feet below and died instantly.

Harriet Quimby’s flying career had lasted exactly 11 months.  She was dead at only 28.

The Boston Globe described the accident as ‘one of the worst tragedies ever to happened at an air meet in America.  The sight caused women to shriek and men to turn sick.’  But what caused the tragedy with such an experienced pilot at the controls of a state-of-the-art aeroplane?  Was it pilot error?

Earl Ovington, a leading pilot of the day, was one of the first to reach the plane crash.  He found that a rudder control wire was caught jammed over the vertical control lever. This design flaw, he concluded, caused the machine ‘to turn left and pitch downward,’ catapulting the occupants out.  The Globe noted that John Moisant had been flying a similar monoplane when he too plunged headfirst to the earth at New Orleans.  The lack of proper seat belts in aeroplanes was also quickly seen as a factor.

Though a tragic loss, Harriett Quimby’s short and impressive career went on to inspire future, famous women aviators.  Elinor Smith was born the same year as Quimby’s daring Channel crossing. Inspired by Quimby, she became the youngest pilot at age 16 and went on to set numerous endurance, speed, and altitude records in the 1920’s. A young Amelia Earhart also was inspired by Harriet Quimby.  She became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic before disappearing while attempting to fly around the globe in 1937.   

Harriet Quimby commemorative stamp
Harriet Quimby commemorative stamp

Today, few remember Harriet Quimby, Queen of the Air.  Though she was a fearless young woman of ambition, intelligence, and beauty, she is all but forgotten. In 1991, eighty years after her death, the U.S. Post Office issued a commemorative stamp honoring her contributions to aviation. The airmail stamp contains a picture of the aviator, dressed in her purple satin blouse, before a Bleriot monoplane, stating simply “Harriet Quimby: Pioneer Pilot.” In 2004, Quimby was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in recognition of her accomplishments during the dawn of manned flight.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews click BOOKS.
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Jonathan Wild, London’s First Criminal Mastermind

London Thief-Taker Jonathan Wild
London ‘Thief-Taker’ Jonathan Wild

In early 18th century England, Jonathan Wild was a notorious criminal mastermind.  He lead a mafia-like empire that included everything from robbery to extortion to blackmail. What makes Wild’s story even more “wild” was that he skillfully played both sides of the coin — crime and law enforcement, profiting as an official Thief-Taker.

In the early 1700’s, London was a city plagued by rampant crime.  Mr. Wild brought dozens of thieves and criminals to justice; earning him the title, “Thief-Taker General.”  It was a service that garnered him the gratitude of both the public and the authorities. Behind the scenes however, Jonathan Wild was the mastermind of a vast criminal empire involving robbery, fencing, prostitution, protection, and any other crime worth a profit.  As the ruler of London’s underworld, he was the Professor Moriarity of his day.  Who was this infamous man?

Jonathan Wild was born in Wolverhampton around 1683, the oldest of five children.  His family was not wealthy, and at fifteen, he apprenticed as a buckle-maker; then spent seven years learning the trade. While still in his teens, he married an equally young girl and they had a child.  But by 24, Wild had grown bored and restless with his small-town, domestic life.  He deserted his family and headed to London to find his fortune.

He struggled to support himself for the first two years.  Without a steady income, Wild fell heavily into debt and was sent to Wood Street Compter, a debtor’s prison.  This ended up being a life-changing event for young Wild.  He put his four years in prison to very good use. Wild used it like a university to learn all about crime from his fellow inmates.  He also made valuable connections within the London underworld he would use later .

Wild did not remain a regular prisoner for long.  His personal charm helped him become a prison “trustee,” allowing him to run errands for the guards.  He became so trusted, the guards allowed him to accompany them outside the prison to capture other criminals.

In addition to learning the tricks of the criminal trade, he also met Molly Milliner. At the time, Milliner was labeled a “buttock and file,” a prostitute and pickpocket. Moreover, she knew most of London’s underworld.  Wild and Milliner fell in love and developed a romantic relationship in prison, despite the fact they were both married to others. 

The pair were released in 1712, and lived together more or less as husband and wife.

Mary and Jonathan set up shop together in Covent Garden, where Wild soon found himself immersed within Milliner’s circle of criminals.  They operated a scheme called “buttock and twang.” Mary, playing the prostitute, would entice a lusty customer into a dark alley.  Jonathan would then whack the chap with a cudgel and rob him.  The semi-conscious men, with trousers about their ankles, rarely gave chase.

This proved to be profitable enough that Wild was eventually able to buy a pub, the King’s Head Inn.  Molly managing a brothel of prostitutes from the upper floors.  In the pub, Wild catered to thieves and other scalawags. It was there Wild and Milliner started their first scam: an upgraded version of the “buttock and twang.” 

While the whores entertained the men, Wild and Milliner would rob them, not just of their coins and jewelry, but also personal letters and diaries. They would then blackmail their victims, offering the return of their items for the price of their silence.

This new scam also proved profitable for the duo.  By 1713, at the age of 30, Wild and Milliner moved their residence to Cripplegate, a more respectable section of London.  They purchased an all new wardrobe, reflecting their improved status. Wild had enough left over to purchase a Brandy Shop near their new home.  This quickly became the site of their second successful scam.

Jonathan Wild moonlighted as a fence of stolen goods, when he developed an even better idea.  

He called a meeting of all the thieves he knew. Rather than take their goods to fences or pawnbrokers, why not offer them back to the owners?  After a robbery, Wild would approach the victims, saying he was acting on behalf of someone who had inadvertently bought their stolen goods. They now wished to restore them anonymously, for fear of being arrested for fencing.  The owner got their goods back, the “benefactor” (thief) got the reward, and Wild got a cut.

The bold Jonathan Wild even opened a formal office in London, offering to retrieve stolen goods for robbed clients – for a fee, of course. When victims came into his office asking for help in getting back a valuable painting or sentimental pocket watch, Wild likely already knew who had it. Business boomed and Wild was soon operating gangs of thieves in the scam.

Molly expanded her prostitution ring and Wild grew into protection and blackmail as well. He became the unofficial King of London’s criminal underworld.  His public persona meanwhile was that of a helpful “crimefighter.” Around this time, Jonathan and Molly sadly parted company, and not under business-like circumstances.  During a heated argument over shared cuts, Wild cut off Molly’s ear with his sword!

Unperturbed over the loss of Molly, Wild expanded his empire yet again. This time, by taking advantage of the fact that London still had a relatively small police force.  Crime had exploded, fueled by London’s population growth. Law enforcement had to adapt, so the police created the position of the “Thief-Taker.”  It became sort of an early bounty hunter.  They offered financial rewards for anyone who could catch and help convict thieves. The people who stepped forward for the job were a rough sort with deep criminal connections. They were the also kind to often commit crimes themselves.

Few people fit the bill, and were more successful, than Mr. Jonathan Wild. 

Wild developed a ring of burglars, thieves and pickpockets that would steal pocketbooks, jewelry, and other valuables. Sometimes, he would turn in the thieves for the reward, sometimes blame a patsy or a rival. Wild would always pretend to have investigated the crime, come into information about stolen items, and offer to broker their return to the original owner.  He eventually earned the title of “Thief-Taker General of Great Britain.” He sent more than 120 people to the gallows and personally attended most of the hangings.

By running this third scam, Wild began to earn high regard from English society, who believed that he was catching criminals – instead of actually orchestrating the crime himself. He also took advantage of the press.  The first daily newspaper in the England was “The Daily Courant.”  Wild published accounts of items he had supposedly “found” with a pawn broker who had been suspicious of the merchandise.

Jonathan Wild enjoyed an arrest-free run for nearly ten years, living in grand style with a much higher-class of mistress this time than Mary Milliner. By 1724 however, cracks began to show in Wild’s empire and the authorities were getting suspicious.  Two years earlier, he sent a highwayman, Joseph Blueskin Blake, to jail. Blueskin had informed on his gang and expected the reward.  But Wild turned him in instead. When Blueskin was released two years later, he still held a heavy grudge against London’s “Thief-Taker General.”  Blueskin teamed up with Jack Sheppard, an infamous burglar, who was jealous of Wild’s criminal empire. Sheppard had been arrested twice and managed to escape from prison twice, making him a sort of underworld folk hero.

Wild tried to recruit him, but Sheppard teamed up with Blueskin instead.

The clever Wild got Sheppard’s wife drunk, found out where he was hiding, and had him arrested again. Sheppard was held in Newgate Prison, with his feet in irons this time, chained to the stone floor. The following month, Blueskin Blake was also arrested. At his trial, Wild himself gave false testimony against him. Enraged, Blueskin attacked Wild in the courtroom with a concealed knife, slashing at Wild’s throat. The scuffle set off a street riot that spread to Newgate Prison.  In the confusion of the riot, Jack Sheppard escaped again!

So Wild arranged for his arrest again, and this time, Sheppard was promptly hanged.  Wild’s continued pursuit of the well-liked Sheppard did not sit well with London’s criminal class and his control began to weaken.

Because of the spotlight of being Thief-Taker General, Wild stored stolen goods away from his properties.  He rented warehouses along the Thames and boats to ship his loot away as needed.  Wild had one boat he used to transport items across the channel for sale there, along with goods smuggled back in. His crews was, of course, made of his thieves. When some expensive lace went missing, Captain Roger Johnson deducted the cost from the first mate’s pay. The furious mate then informed on the smugglers to port authorities and Johnson was arrested. Fearing he would turn against him in court, Wild organized a mob of his thugs to break the captain out of jail.

In a rare, sloppy act, Wild himself was at the scene and identified.

Then things got even worse. While Wild was now under attack for orchestrating the riot, the first mate flipped again, time on Jonathan Wild. The first mate knew the exact location of Wild’s warehouses and told the London authorities.  A search of the premises found hundreds of stolen items.  The police promptly arrested Wild.  The British public was outraged.  The man who paraded around as a moral crusader was in fact a criminal mastermind?!  Daniel Defoe, a British journalist, wrote a pamphlet about the case:

“How infatuated were the people of this nation all this while! Did they consider, that at the very time that they treated this person with such a confidence, he had, perhaps, the very goods in his keeping, and that, perhaps, they had been stolen with that very intention?” – Daniel Defoe

Wild’s trial was a huge spectacle. Defoe noted it was the largest audience he had ever seen at the Old Bailey.  Wild was charged with a vast array of crimes. He tried to pin the ownership of the stolen booty on one of his cohorts, but that failed to work. Witnesses came forward that he had started the riot that helped Captain Johnson escape. Wild was found guilty of all his crimes. The overwhelming evidence and public disdain led the judge to sentence him to death.

Depiction of Jonathan Wild being carted off to his hanging.
Depiction of Jonathan Wild being carted off to his London hanging.

The night before his hanging, in his cell at Newgate, Jonathan Wild attempted suicide by overdosing on laudanum.  But it only succeeded in making himself sick. The next morning, 24 May 1725, the open cart carrying the condemned man rumbled out of Newgate Prison on a two-mile journey to Tyburn Tree. The trip took three hours past hoards of jeering Londoners.  He was pelted with rotting fruit, dead animals, and even feces.  The cart, as was customary, made three stops at pubs along the way, so condemned men could drink enough to be drunk at their hanging.

At Tyburn, another crowd waited to watch the downfall of a man once revered, and now reviled.  Daniel Defoe wrote that the crowd was the largest ever assembled for a hanging as well. Because of the laudanum and ale in his system, Wild stood in a daze. He did not give any last words before the thick noose was placed around his neck.  The hangman, who had been a guest at one of Wild’s weddings, made it mercifully quick.  When the horse cart was pulled away, Jonathan Wild dropped and dangled on the end of his rope.  He eventually stopped kicking and was dead at the age of forty-two.  So ended one of the world’s first major criminal networks, lead by a single ruthless and resourceful man.

Wild, at one point London’s most celebrated Thief-Taker, then its most reviled criminal, was largely forgotten for well over a century.  That is, until author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle dropped his name in a novel. He had his famous creation Sherlock Holmes refer to Professor Moriarty a true successor of Jonathan Wild, the once famous Thief-Taker General. A British movie, Where’s Jack, was made in 1969 about Wild and Sheppard’s final confrontation.

Remarkably, one can still see Jonathan Wild for themselves.  Go to Hunterian Museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields in London. Though Wild was buried in St. Pancras Old Church, next to one of his many wives, he was dug up three days later by surgeon anatomists. As a criminal, they were free to dissect his body for learning purposes.  When done, they stripped away the flesh and wired up his skeleton.  It is still on display at the Hunterian, the remains of the infamous criminal mastermind who once ruled all the thieves of London.

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The German Reichstag Fire Sparked Hitler’s Rise to Power

The 1933 Berlin Reichstag Fire
The 1933 Berlin Reichstag Fire

On 27 February 1933, the German parliament building in Berlin, the Reichstag, went up in flames from an arson attack.  Adolf Hitler skillfully harnessed the after effects of the Reichstag Fire to seize absolute power.  Hitler claimed the fire was a Communist attempt to overthrow the government.  He played upon public and political fears of chaos to consolidate his power, cementing the rise of his Nazi regime.  As the newly named Chancellor, he used the fire as an excuse to seize absolute control in Germany and ultimately declare himself Fuhrer.  All this happened in little over a year.

Germany’s post-World War I democracy began with the Weimar Constitution in 1919.  It established an elected president, who appointed a chancellor to lead the elected Reichstag or parliament.  Adolf Hitler rose through the ranks to head the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazis) whose membership exceeded 100,000 by 1928.  The Nazis denounced the current government as criminals who had cowardly signed the World War I Treaty of Versailles.  They slowly gained strength due to the people’s growing dissatisfaction with their government.

Despite its growth, the Nazis won only 3% of the vote in 1928.  But then the Great Depression hit across the U.S. and Europe.  The number of unemployed in Germany rose to 6 million  (30% of the population). German President Paul von Hindenburg replaced the chancellor, dissolved the Reichstag, and called for elections. The Nazis exploited the economic depression to gain political power. By 1930, they won 18% of the Reichstag and became the 2nd largest party, after Hindenburg’s Social Democrats, with the Communist party 3rd.

January 1933, Hindenburg reluctantly appointed Hitler as chancellor in the belief that together they could keep the Communists out of power. In March, there would be another series of new Reichstag elections.  Hitler and the Nazis set about both campaigning and suppressing any chance of political opposition. In February, Hitler issued the Decree for the Protection of the German People. 

It restricted the German free press and ordered the police to ban all political meetings and marches, supposedly for safety reasons. Hitler empowered his own party members as police officers. He enrolled 50,000 Nazi Sturmabteilung (SA) stormtroopers as police. Interior Minister Hermann Göring ordered a raid on the Communist party headquarters in Berlin, falsely claiming they had uncovered leaflets encouraging an armed public revolt.

Then came the 1933 Reichstag Fire.

On the evening of 27 February 1933 around 9 PM, pedestrians walking near the Reichstag building heard the loud sounds of breaking glass. Soon, tall orange flames erupted from the structure. It took Berlin firemen hours until dawn to quash the huge fire.  The blaze destroyed the Reichstag’s famous gilded cupola, the main parliamentary chamber, and caused over $1 million (US) in damage.

At the scene, police arrested Marinus van der Lubbe, a 24-year-old unemployed Dutch construction worker with Communist sympathies.   Police found the young man outside the building with fire-lighting implements in his possession, out of breath and sweating.  Van der Lubbe confessed to setting the fire, saying he did it to encourage a worker’s uprising against the German state.

That night, Adolf Hitler went to see President Hindenburg, saying “This is a God-given signal! If this fire is the work of the Communists, as I believe, then we must crush this murderous pest with an iron fist.”

The Nazi Party used the atmosphere of public panic and terror to their advantage, employing propaganda to blame the Communists. Göring publicly declared that the Communists were planning a national uprising to overthrow the Republic!

By the end of the next day, Hitler had convinced the 86 year-old Hindenburg to sign the “Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of the People and State.” The act declared a state of German emergency and abolished freedom of speech, assembly, privacy and the press; legalized phone tapping and interception of letters and telegrams; and suspended the autonomy of the German states. The decree also allowed the Nazis to arrest and jail their political opponents indiscriminately for any or no reason, labelling them as traitors to the republic.

The German Reichstag after the 1933 fire.
The German Reichstag after the 1933 fire.

That night, Hitler’s SA stormtroopers arrested and imprisoned over 4,000 Communist party members. Ironically, the swift and brutal response to the Reichstag Fire bolstered Hitler’s image amongst the German people as Germany’s strong savior from the dreaded Bolsheviks. With this act, the Nazis were able to complete the journey from democracy to dictatorship.

In March, the general election took place, with a high national turnout of 89%. The Nazis secured 44% of the vote, but not enough to command a majority in the Reichstag.  Hitler would take care of that soon enough. Later that month, the new Reichstag met temporarily at the Berlin Kroll Opera House and passed THE ENABLING ACT.  The meeting supposedly marked the union of the Nazi Party with Hindenburg’s Social Democrats, but it essentially turned the country over to the Nazis.  The Enabling Act gave ALL legislative power to Adolf Hitler.

Given the atmosphere of terror and chaos that followed the Reichstag Fire, plus Hindenburg’s support of Hitler, the proposal seemed legitimate and even necessary to the German people.  The Bill passed by 444 votes for, to 94 votes against, on 24 March 1933.  

Though Hindenburg and the Reichstag existed, Hitler could now basically govern by decree.

Gleichschaltung was the process of the Nazi Party taking control over ALL aspects of Germany. The Nazis started with the Civil Service, removing anyone of non-Ayran descent.  In the judicial system, Hitler removed any judges deemed non-compliant with strict Nazi principles. The so-called People’s Court, created by the Nazis in 1934, replaced the German Supreme Court.

The dually elected 81 Communist deputies in the March elections, were detained indefinitely. Their empty seats left the Nazis largely free to do as they wished.  To control cultural policies, the Hitler appointed Joseph Goebbels as Minister for Public Engagement. Goebbels now controlled the national media, film, theatre, and the arts, ensuring that they advocated only Nazi propaganda.

By the end of 1933, all non-Nazi political parties, labor unions, and other social organizations ceased to exist. The Nazis ordered the closure of over 1,600 newspapers.  Censorship was heightened, and any person spouting anti-Nazi ideas was arrested.  The Nazi SA and SS arrested and imprisoned up to 200,000 people. The first concentration camp, Dachau, was opened in a old World War I munitions factory to handle all the new prisoners. It would soon be filled with Jews.

The final domino to fall was President Hindenburg.  World War I hero Paul von Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934 at the age of 87. With Hindenburg gone, there was no longer a controller of Hitler’s power. He was now a dictator. The German military sanctioned a new Hitler law that combined the posts of president and chancellor, cementing his absolute power in Germany as the new Fuhrer.

Who Set the Reichstag Fire?

Many Germans at the time challenged the Nazi propaganda that the arson was a Communist plot. Some diplomats and foreign journalists within Germany suggested that the Nazis had started the fire themselves as a ruse for taking power.   German Communist Willi Münzenberg headed an independent investigation that produced The Brown Book on the Reichstag Fire and Hitler Terror, a 1933 bestseller published in Paris.  It suggested van der Lubbe was a Nazi pawn.

It included the argument that the Nazis were the real criminals who orchestrated the fire to foment fear and consolidate power.  He wrote that, given the extent of the fire and the amount of time needed to set it, there was no way van der Lubbe acted alone inside. He argued that the Communists were not involved; but rather, the Nazis, who investigated the fire, covered up their own involvement.

Later that year, a sensational trial got under way in Leipzig.  The confessed arsonist, van der Lubbe, and Ernst Torgler, leader of the Communist Party in the Reichstag, were put on trial.  Only Van der Lubbe was convicted, found guilty, and sentenced to death. He was ultimately beheaded in January 1934.

[The German government later exonerated Marinus van der Lubbe in 2008, seventy-five years after his execution by the Nazis.]

Since then, the Reichstag Fire has become something of a metaphor.  It is referenced even today by citizens around the world as a cautionary lesson learned – one that calls up images of a manufactured crisis, sowed fears and hatred, followed by a ruthless grab for power.  

So was Hitler’s seizure of power the result of political arson or simply taking advantage of an opportune event?  Did the Nazis really set the fire, or did van der Lubbe act alone? It’s impossible to know, since those who survived WWII did not talk about the fire during East German Communist rule. One thing is certain, the Reichstag Fire played a critical role in Adolf Hitler and the Nazis rise to absolute power. The German people were now willing to blindly follow their new Fuhrer … even into the hell of World War II and the Holocaust.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews click BOOKS.
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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 crash 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 an 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, and 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.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS
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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.  The hikers had left sliced-up food on a plate as if they 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 Dyatlov 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. A snowstorm hit 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 Dyatlov 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 of the Dyatlov Pass 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 Dyatlov Pass 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 Dyatlov Pass 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 Dyatlov Pass 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.”

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS
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