Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-06-01
ZEPPELIN
FOR RETURN TRIP
Workmen Begin Repairs to
Streets Broken at Per-
ambuco Mooring.
BY the Associated Press.

| By the Associated Press.
.LAKEHURST, N. j., May Slater
riding out the most tempestuous squalls
Of its career, the German dirigible Graf
Zeppelin, that great gray rambler of the
skies, arrived today at this scene of
its triumphal crossing of the Atlantic.
It's shimmering skin blanched by
tropic suns and washed by Sub-equa-
torial torrents, the sky ship that has
crossed the Pacific once and the At
lantic seven times, to say nothing of
ringing the world, nosed into sight at
o'clock, Eastern standard time, this
morning as ghostly as the mists from
which It came.
Officers and passengers told Of storms
in the air and as soon as the ship
berthed workmen began repairs on
broken struts holding in place the aft
rear engine gondola.
struts Broken at Pernambuco.
w. F. Won Meister, American repre-
sentative of the Luftshifbau, said that
the struts were broken while the ship
was at its mast at Pernambuco. He said
that the damage was found to be uniTn-
portant and to avoid delay the ship was
brought on here with no more than jury
repairs. He said that the gondola had
suffered no additional damage during
the flight from Pernambuco, despite the
rough weather.
After the landing was viewed by hun
dreds instead of the thousands who
came to see her on the three other times
she was here, the passengers began to
scatter. The Infante Alfonso, first
cousin of the King of Spain, was taken
In Navy plane to Washington at in
vitation of the Government. w. B.
Leeds, wealthy New Yorker, took Mrs.
Pierce to New York in a large plane he
had waiting for him at the field. The
train.
Before the passengers left, however.
they were subjected to customs and
health examinations and to interviews,
sound reel talks and dozens of photo
graphs. After Leeds had been photo
graphed repeatedly he walked away
with a parting shot that brought laughs
even from the cameramen.
IF this keeps on" he said, "Ill be
Mary Pickford."
Securely Housed In Hangar.
An hour and quarter after the Graf
was first sighted, 1t was securely housed
IN the great hangar it had visited three
times before and work was soon after
begun to refuel it for the last stretch
of its four continent flight, which has
already taken it $4,000 miles in 204
flying hours. The take-off on the re-
turn to the home station at Friedrich
shafen, with a stop at Seville, is sched-
uled for O'Clock, Eastern standard
time, Monday night.
The journey so far has carried the
Graf, with its crew of so and shifting
list of passengers which when it landed
here numbered 3 women and Is men,
from Friedrichshafen to Seville, across
the tip of Africa and over the Atlantic
to Perpambuco, down to Rio Janeiro
and back, and then northward $500
miles to Lakehurst.
The arrival here was made dramatic
by a ring of haze around the horizon
from which the great ship suddenly
appeared quite close at hand like some
strange cropping beast from another
planet come to investigate the earth.
On one side appeared the Navy dirigible
Los Angeles, slenderer but almost as
long as the Graf, and on the other the
seemed by contrast to make the other
ships even more gigantic than they
actually are.
DR.. Eckener Praises Ship.
In an interview in the hangar press
room DR.. Eckener spoke OF the ship
In high praise and told Of drenching
rains in South America and windstorms
on the way from Pernambuco here.
AT half past eight last night" he said,
speaking through an interpreter, I'VE
ran into a squall which was the worst
/ have ever experienced. One minute
the wind was blowing at 80 miles an
hour in one direction and the next it
was blowing 40 miles in the exactly
opposite direction.
1.-THE ship dipped like this" he ges-
tured with swoop Of his hand. But"
he added with smile, none of the
passengers was seasick. 1t was worse
sQuall than the one in midocean on
the first Atlantic flight of the Graf
when fabric was torn from a fin"