Tuesday, October 16, 1934

Gave talk in English. Mother still sick.

Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek
October 1934

The Long March was a military retreat undertaken by the Red Army of the Communist Party of China, the forerunner of the People's Liberation Army, to evade the pursuit of the Kuomintang (KMT or Chinese Nationalist Party) army. There was not one Long March, but a series of marches, as various Communist armies in the south escaped to the north and west. The most well known is the march from Jiangxi province which began October 16, 1934. The First Front Army of the Chinese Soviet Republic, led by an inexperienced military commission, was on the brink of annihilation by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's troops in their stronghold in Jiangxi province. The Communists, under the eventual command of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, escaped in a circling retreat to the west and north, which reportedly traversed some 12,500 kilometers (8,000 miles) over 370 days. The route passed through some of the most difficult terrain of western China by traveling west, then north, to Shaanxi.

Monday, October 16, 1933

Ruth came by and we walked to school together. Had a lot of night work this evening.

USS Macon
Sister of the rigid airship USS Akron

Built in Akron, Ohio, the USS. Macon first flew in April 1933, only a few weeks after
Akron's tragic loss. Following a series of test flights, one of which took her from Ohio to
Wisconsin and back, she was commissioned in June. Macon was based at Lakehurst, New Jersey,
during mid-1933 and made several development and training flights during this time.

In October she flew by way of her name city of Macon, Georgia, and Texas to Moffett Field,
California. She arrived on October 16, 1933, and was housed at Hangar One. The hangar was
designed and built for the Macon and is still in existence today. The RMS Titanic could fit in 
Hangar One with room to spare at each end of the hangar.

The Macon participated in numerous fleet exercises and problems over the next year and a half.
During the early evening of 12 February 1935, while returning to Moffett Field from an operation
over the ocean, USS Macon encountered a storm off Point Sur, California. A violent gust tore
off her upper fin, causing damage that soon brought her down into the sea. Though all but two
of her crew were rescued, the dirigible sank in deep water, effectively ending the Navy's
controversial, and trouble-plagued, program of rigid airship operations.