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Garst
Remembers the Tragedy of the USS Shenandoah
On Sunday, March 31, 2019, at 2 p.m., Garst Museum welcomes Mr. Jerry
Copas, author of The Wreck of the Naval Airship USS Shenandoah
(2017). Copas became interested in the USS Shenandoah many years
ago in elementary school after seeing a photo in a book of the ship’s
wreckage sprawled out on an Ohio farm in Noble County. Many years later
as he was driving through southern Ohio, he decided to see if there was
any evidence remaining of the tragedy. After locating the farm and the
crash site, visiting the monuments and memorials in the area, and
interviewing local historians, he envisioned the idea for the
book.
It is no surprise that Copas would have an interest in airships filled
with helium. He himself is co-owner of Images Aloft Balloning, Inc. He
has been a balloon pilot for over 35 years and has piloted balloons in
30 states and 7 countries. He is a member of the Balloon
Federation of America, the Balloon Society of Kentucky, the Akron
Lighter-Than-Air Society, the Naval Airship Association, and the Navy
Lakehurst Historical Society. He is a prolific author of magazine
and newsletter articles on ballooning and aviation history and is
awaiting release of his upcoming book, French Lick and West Baden
Springs, which is due out in 2019.
Copas will speak about the USS Shenandoah and Lt. Cmdr. Zachary
Lansdowne, who was piloting the Shenandoah on the day that it crashed
in 1925. Based on the engineering of the famous German Zeppelins, the
airship was a marvel of its day. When launched from the U.S. Naval Air
Station in Lakehurst, New Jersey, the USS Shenandoah became the
nation’s first rigid airship and the first to use helium gas.
Unfortunately, rigid airships were especially vulnerable to bad
weather, and the Shenandoah was no exception. On September 3, 1925,
while starting off on a 3,000-mile publicity trip to the Midwest, the
airship was ripped into several pieces by a storm over Noble County in
southeastern Ohio. Fourteen men died, but 29 miraculously survived. On
that fateful day, Lt. Cmdr. Zachary Lansdowne, a Greenville native,
went down with his ship. The Garst Museum has an exhibit about
Lt. Cmdr. Lansdowne, who had been deemed a national hero by the time he
appeared on the cover of Time magazine on September 14, 1925. The wreck
of the USS Shenandoah was front-page news nationwide, and Lansdowne was
hailed as a hero who remained at his post until the end.
All Garst lectures are free and open to the public. However,
regular admission will apply to tour the museum, which includes the
outstanding National Annie Oakley Center, Crossroads of Destiny, Lowell
Thomas exhibit, and Longtown display. Funding for this program was made
possible, in part, by the Harry D. Stephens Memorial Foundation.
Photo: The Wreck of the Naval Airship USS Shenandoah by Jerry Copas –
Book cover
The Garst Museum is located at:
205 N. Broadway, Greenville, OH 45331
937-548-5250
website: www.garstmuseum.org
email: information@garstmuseum.org
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