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EGYPT. 1931. Postcard sent from CAIRE 10.4.31 by airship LZ-127 Graf Zeppelin to FRIEDRICHSHAFEN 13.4.31 in Germany. On the picture page you can see the Airship.
On April 9, 1931, Graf Zeppelin left Friedrichshafen at 6:10 AM and proceeded south over Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily, and reached the Libyan coast at 5:15 AM the next day and proceeded eastward over Benghazi, crossing into Egypt at Sollum and continuing to Alexandria at 12:55 PM. The Zeppelin spent 40 minutes circling over Alexandria while much of the population watched.
From Alexandria, the ship followed the Nile to Cairo, arriving around 3:30 PM. Eckener brought it over the Qubba Palace, where King Fuad I and Queen Nazli were watching from a balcony. He dipped the great Zepplin's bow three times to the monarch.
So much of the 1929 trip had been in the dark that there were few photo opportunities, But the 1931 trip offered plenty of the sort of publicity photos Dr. Hugo Eckener and Germany had been hoping for. After cruising over Cairo, Graf Zeppelin then proceeded to the Pyramids at Giza, providing multiple photo ops and descending to only a short distance above the Great Pyramid of Khufu. These were to become some of the most iconic pictures of the visit:
The Zeppelin proceeded south to the Step Pyramid at Saqqara and then cruised northward over the cities of the Delta overnight, while the passengers slept. At the coast it turned back towards Cairo and its first landing in the Middle East.
At 5:15 AM,the ship reached Cairo and the old Almaza airfield, which was Cairo's original civil airport and is today an Air Force Base some distance south of Cairo International Airport which replaced it. There, at 6:10 AM, British troops stationed in the area manned the mooring cable and also formed a cordon around he airship to hold back surging crowds, estimated at 30,000, who had flocked to Almaza to see it Firehoses were reportedly used to hold back the crowds when it took off later. An account of that visit can be read here.
Fonte : https://mideasti.blogspot.com/2015/02/ze...
Collezione : XXVI Letters and Postcards