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October 1910, aboard the steamship Trent off Bermuda. "M. Vaniman and cat." Melvin Vaniman, first engineer aboard the hydrogen airship America, with the tabby cat mascot of their ill-fated attempt at the first air crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. 5x7 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection. View full size.
Frederick Murray Simon, the navigator of the airship America, from which this cat was rescued, was on the maiden voyage of the Hindenburg!
http://www.airships.net/hindenburg/flight-schedule/maiden-voyage
So the consensus is that it was the cat's fault? My dog would buy that.
That cat looks downright diabolical.
I wonder if, in two years, Kitty had something to do with the Titanic, and if he is plotting it even as this picture is being taken.
One should never underestimate the power of a cat ....
BURN (pun intended)
On a side note, I have decided personal Zeppelin would be an awesome way to travel. Provided hydrogen is not the source of one's lift of course.
The cat's expression is so calm and cool. It's almost as if he may have had a paw in the ship's demise...
Writing in ALL CAPS is irritating enough when people are "correcting" a previous comment. When the "correcter" turns out to be the one who needs correcting, it's ESPECIALLY annoying.
The Akron was lost in a storm on April 3rd,1933, off the coast of New Jersey. It DID NOT explode as reported above. It was filled with 6,500,000 cubic feet of HELIUM, not hydrogen. US airships never used hydrogen.
73 men went down with her.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Akron_(ZRS-4)
[Wrong. The very first sentence of that Wikipedia article notes that there was more than one airship called the Akron. Like my sixth-grade teacher used to say, it always pays to check your facts. - Dave]
Out of sheer curiosity, is it known what happened to the cat when the America was abandoned by its crew?
[That''s what the photo is of. The crew after they were rescued by the Trent. - Dave]
Looks to have cat hair all over his sweater and coat. Just like my clothes, my house, furniture and every damn thing I own. It was never my intention to love a cat and I swear, I will never love another one.
I love that the guy holding the cat is covered in cat hair. Some things never change...
.... than the one that accompanied Shackleton and the crew of ENDURANCE to the south polar seas. R.I.P. Mrs. Chippy.
Vaniman lost his life during his second attempt at a trans-Atlantic airship crossing when his airship, the Akron, exploded off the New Jersey shore on July 2, 1912. Filled with 11,300 cubic meters of hydrogen gas, his was the first American airship that could compare to the better known European manufactured models. Vaniman and his crew of four were killed when the airship exploded in front of the gathered crowd near Atlantic City, and gondola plunged 750 meters into an inlet.
-- Wikipedia
That cat is definitely planning an act of revenge.
Our cat Diablo would be a dangerous source of static electricity were he on board a hydrogen filled airship. Patting him actually causes interference on an AM radio! Maybe it's just as well that the America's crossing was aborted.
I was hoping that we'd get to see the cat. Looks like he was leash trained.
[Also rope trained. The New York Times reported that Kitty jumped out of the airship in heavy fog early in the voyage but was fished out of the Atlantic with a canvas bag attached to a lifeline. - Dave]
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