An unpublished firsthand account of life aboard a German airship during the First World War. Based on the original letters of physics professor Robert Wichard Pohl, who spent several years flying on zeppelins during the First World War, this book tells the story of the first flight to exceed 100 hours in the air. Along the way, it tells the story of those men responsible for the flight, as well as the history of both airship development and the continuing interest in transatlantic flight. The particular flight described in Pohl's account was captained by Ernst August Lehmann, Germany's foremost airship captain, who was killed on the Hindenburg in 1937. It shows how this flight put into operation the lessons learned, both in the development of airships and their use in the First World War, to prove that these fragile giants were capable of flying across the Atlantic. In doing so, the book fills a gap between the two great areas of interest in airships. This is a book for aviation history enthusiasts that tells the full story of a well-known but little-described chapter in aviation history. AUTHOR: An author and tour guide based in Washington, DC. In between tours, Robert Pohl researches and writes about history. This is his fifth book, and the first to combine his interests in aviation, genealogy, and history. He is a direct descendant of Robert Wichard Pohl. SELLING POINTS: . The Robert Wichard Pohl letters, which are the basis of this book, have never before been translated or published . Pohl provides a rare personal account of life aboard a WWI airship . This was the first flight to exceed 100 hours, and to prove that Zeppelins were, indeed, capable of flying across the Atlantic Ocean 20 b/w photographs
