One of my earliest memories, the view, looking straight up, of the enormous Zeppelin as it flew overhead at quite a low altitude and it seemed to be very close.

Because I was not quite 6 years old, it made a very lasting impression:

I could see its gondola with many windows and there were faces in most of them, looking down at us. I could see and hear the engines and propellers suspended from the underside and also saw some coloured lights.

My father and I were standing in a field beside the Detroit River (we were living in Windsor, Ontaio) and were there to watch the Zeppelin as it flew across the river on its way to Akron, Ohio.

I was well-prepared for the viewing as we had been following the newspaper reports of the Graf Zeppelin's flight from Germany to Siberia to Japan, then across the Pacific to San Francisco. Then it flew to Chicago and Detroit. It was of great interest to us because there were letters on board it for us!

Dad was a stamp collector and he had bought the special stamps that had been issued to recognize the flight and had sent several letters to everyone in our family. The letters had been mailed in Detroit to be put on board the Zeppelin.

On a wall in our house we had put up a map of the world and Dad had made a little silver paper Zeppelin that could be pinned to the map. Each day we would move our Zeppelin to where the papers said that the real one had been.

When the Graf Zeppelin finally completed its voyage in Europe, all the letters on board were taken to a post office for delivery. I remember that it took quite a while but we finally got all of our cards and letters.