Sky Ships: A History of the Airship in the United States Navy, 25th Anniversary Edition

By William F Althoff

Originally published in 1990, Sky Ships is easily the most comprehensive history of U.S. Navy airships ever written. The Naval Institute Press is releasing this new edition— complete with two hundred new photographs—to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the book’s publication. Impressed by Germany’s commercial and military Zeppelins, the United States initiated its own airship program in 1915. Naval Air Station Lakehurst in New Jersey was homeport for several of the largest machines ever to navigate the air. The success of the commercial rigid airship peaked in 1936 with transatlantic round trips between Central Europe and the Americas by Hindenburg and by Graf Zeppelin— ending with the infamous fire in 1937. That setback, the onset of war, and the accelerated progress of heavier-than-air technology ended rigid airship development. The Navy continued to use blimps to protect Allied shipping during World War II. Following the war, the Navy persisted with efforts to integrate the airships, but the program was finally discontinued in the early 1960s.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Naval Institute Press
• Release date: Feb 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781612519012

Book preview

Books by William F. Althoff

USS Los Angeles

The Navy’s Venerable Airship and Aviation Technology

Forgotten Weapon

U.S. Navy Airships and the U-Boat War

Arctic Mission

90 North by Airship and Submarine

Naval Institute Press

291 Wood Road

Annapolis, MD 21402

© 2016 by William F. Althoff

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Althoff, William F.

Sky ships: a history of the airship in the United States Navy / William F. Althoff. — 25th anniversary edition.

1 online resource.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN 978-1-61251-901-2 (epub) 1. United States. Navy—Aviation—History. 2. Airships—United States—History. I. Title. II. Title: History of the airship in the United States Navy.

VG93

359.9’4834—dc23

2015028772

Print editions meet the requirements of ANSI/NISO z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

242322212019181716987654321

First printing

To the memory of my father—

whose curiosity started all this

CONTENTS

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Establishing an Air Station

The USS Shenandoah and the Early Years

The USS Los Angeles: Training and Experimentation

The USS Akron and USS Macon

Lakehurst: International Airport

Preparations for War

The War Years

Postwar Progress

End of the Program

Afterword

Appendices

ACommanding Officers, NAS Lakehurst (1921–62)

BPerformance and Other Data for U.S. Navy Airships (1915–61)

CU.S. Navy Lighter-Than-Air Headquarters and Facilities, Second World War

DMemorandum on Status of Lighter-Than-Air (1959)

EPostwar Airship Deliveries to the U.S. Navy (1952–60)

FLast Airships in the U.S. Navy Aircraft Inventory

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Index

PREFACE

Out of the soft afternoon sky comes the airship. The pulse of five powerful engines is ever more insistent as the aircraft approaches. Gradually, the sound of her arrival engulfs the airfield and those assembled for the ceremony. Naval officers and ground crewmen, newsmen, and dignitaries stare expectantly.

The size and curious grace of the airship become evident as she comes over the field. She floats effortlessly before them, yet her dimensions are remarkable. The streamlined hull is 650 feet long and more than 100 feet high, an intricate space of compartments, passageways, and machinery. She is an aerial home for forty aviators, a ship of the sky. On this mild November day in 1924, she is also the largest aircraft in the world. New letters on her silver flanks spell out the name Los Angeles. Amidships, bold letters announce her proud operator: U.S. Navy.

She is the Navy’s third rigid airship, or ZR, designated ZR-3. These aerial ships are intended as very long-range strategic scouts for the fleet. The lighter-than-air (LTA) program at this moment is charged with promise and potential.

This morning, the ship was walked from the great hangar at Lakehurst, New Jersey, for a short flight south to the naval air station (NAS) at Anacostia, near Washington, D.C. There the ship will be commissioned into the United States Navy. This is the inaugural flight under American command, but it is not her first flight. The world’s largest, most modern airship has been designed and built in Germany. The military and commercial potential of Zeppelin airships has deeply impressed the aeronautical world. But Germany now is a defeated power, and the Great War victors want Zeppelins for themselves—without German competition. So the few surviving Zeppelins are distributed and their sheds destroyed. The United States receives none of the spoils. And so, in 1922, a contract is signed with Luftschiffbau Zeppelin (Zeppelin Company) at Freidrichshafen, in southern Germany, for a compensation airship. The order for this new ship saves the firm from liquidation.

America’s Zeppelin is intended to impress the aeronautical community, which indeed she does. Completed in 1924, USS Los Angeles will survive the vagaries of both weather and naval politics until 1939—the longest useful life of any rigid airship.

On 12 October 1924, LZ-126 (builder’s designation) lifts off from Germany to dare the broad North Atlantic for America. More than eighty hours later, the aircraft lands at NAS Lakehurst. She is the fourth aircraft to cross—and the first from Germany to the United States. The feat electrifies the press and thrills the public. The commander, Dr. Hugo Eckener, and his delivery crew are feted everywhere, including a parade in New York City and a welcome at the White House. Some of the war’s lingering bitterness is thus dispelled. More important for the future, the delivery marks the beginning of a close liaison between German and American airship men, a bond that will flourish through triumph and tragedy until the eve of another world war—and the end of all rigid airship development.

But that is comfortably in the future. Today, Commissioning Day, there are thirty-nine officers and men on board, including eleven of the Germans who delivered her. These aviators share a determined belief in the efficacy of the large airship as a means to navigate the air. The mood throughout the ship is proud, hopeful, expectant.

The airship tries to land. Literally, she cannot reach the ground—the ship is too light. The Navy is operating its LTA program on a budgetary shoestring; needless expenditures must be avoided. The aircraft’s lift is provided by nearly 2.6 million cubic feet of helium, which is frightfully expensive. Therefore, if possible, her commanding officer wants to land without valving precious gas. But the ground crew, under the leadership of Lt. Charles E. Rosendahl, USN, cannot pull her down. The wind is gusty. A handling line snaps. Reluctantly, the valve controls are pulled, and seventy thousand cubic feet of helium are released to the atmosphere.

While this awkward ballet of men and machine continues, the assembled guests wait patiently. Among the distinguished visitors is an unobtrusive figure who appears vaguely distressed by the entire affair. But this facial expression is characteristic of the American president, Calvin Coolidge. He appears (as one commentator notes) to be forever looking down his nose to locate some evil smell that seems always to offend him.¹ Nearby, a big naval officer appears particularly pleased. Vice Adm. William A. Moffett, USN, is a proponent of the large naval airship. As chief of the new Bureau of Aeronautics (BuAer), moreover, the admiral is responsible for all naval aviation. His advocacy of the rigid airship will cost him his life.

After several failed attempts, ZR-3 lands into the anxious hands of the ground crew. Navy men scramble aboard as ballast to help keep the ship heavy; alongside, shipmates hold her down. The ceremony can proceed.

At 1614 hours, as reporters dutifully scribble and cameras record the scene, ZR-3 is christened USS Los Angeles by Mrs. Grace Coolidge, wife of the president, with a bottle of water from the River Jordan. (The absence of champagne is a concession to the burning social issue: Prohibition.) Six minutes later, the ship is placed into commission as a vessel of the Navy and delivered to her captain, who reads his orders to command. Coolidge and his party are then escorted up into the control car for a brief tour. The president’s flag is displayed—the only time this will occur on a U.S. Navy airship.

The flight crew is anxious to be under way. Lt. T. G. W. Tex Settle, USN (soon to become the Navy’s top balloon pilot), is at the head of the ladder, keeping the line of VIP traffic moving with a Please step along, sir and a slight push on the elbow. A short and sluggish guest is given an extra verbal and physical urging. Settle recalls, He looked up, a bit surprised, and I saw it was ‘Silent Cal’ himself. He said nothing, and did speed up a bit. Mrs. Coolidge, following, gave me an understanding, amused smile—she probably hadn’t seen her husband shoved that way in a long time. . . . She was a gracious lady. After fifteen minutes, the president disembarks and the young officer freezes to attention, but Coolidge seems not to notice the lieutenant.²

Admiral Moffett, Lieutenant Rosendahl, and another five climb aboard for the short passage north to home port. No time is wasted. At 1654 hours, the ship is weighed off in preparation for castoff, that is, the aircraft’s load, lift, and trim are precisely adjusted. Ten minutes later, Los Angeles rises vertically off the field, four engines are cut in at two-thirds speed, and the aircraft moves off, to the east. In 2½ hours, she is circling the Lakehurst landing field where, finally, she lands and is berthed in the great hangar next to USS Shenandoah (ZR-1), her American-built sister.

In the evening hours of 25 November 1924, the returning naval aviators stow their flight gear as ground crewmen roll the doors closed.

In less than a dozen years and for a variety of reasons—technological, military, and political—the rigid airship will fail to prove its value in naval warfare. The legacy of that program will compromise development of the nonrigid airship, or blimp. U.S. Navy interest in these smaller ships has been subordinated during the big-ship era, but an aggressive program of development will accelerate, belatedly, in 1940. Given the urgent pressures of the trade war at sea, the largest airship fleet ever deployed will, during the Second World War, contribute to defeat of the U-boat menace. Further, the Navy will persist. The postwar lighter-than-air program will operate modern, highly sophisticated blimps as antisubmarine warfare (ASW) and as airborne early warning (AEW) platforms. Nonetheless, in 1961, the LTA program of the United States Navy will be terminated in favor of competing naval systems, with all flight operations ending on 31 August 1962. Nearly five decades of experimentation, development, and experience will be discarded.

This book is that story.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The research and writing of this book has incurred countless obligations. Indispensable support was provided by Capt. M. H. Eppes, USN (Ret.); Capt. Frederick N. Klein Jr., USN (Ret.); Mr. and Mrs. Eugene P. Moccia; and Lt. Cdr. James M. Punderson, USN (Ret.), all of whom made available personal papers and offered suggestions. Captains Eppes and Klein also submitted to in-depth interviews then, later, reviewed selected draft chapters. Dr. Douglas H. Robinson also reviewed several chapters and provided important information and counsel.

I am grateful to Rear Adm. Calvin M. Bolster, USN (Ret.); Capt. Howard N. Coulter, USN (Ret.); Lt. Herbert R. Rowe, USN (Ret.); and Capt. George F. Watson, USN (Ret.) for their written statements, interview information, and images.

Cdr. Walter D. Ashe, USN (Ret.); Lt. Cdr. William A. Baker, USN (Ret.); Capt. Maurice M. Bradley, USN (Ret.); CPO Moody Erwin, USN (Ret.); Rear Adm. Harold B. Miller, USN (Ret.); Lt. David F. Patzig, USN (Ret.); the late Rear Adm. George E. Pierce, USN (Ret.); Cdr. Robert Shannon, USN (Ret.); Lt. Cdr. Leonard E. Schellberg, USN (Ret.), and Mrs. Schellberg; and the late Capt. Earl K. Van Swearingen, USN (Ret.), provided useful materials and agreed to audio interviews.

Other individuals also provided recorded information. Among these were Rear Adm. Richard S. Andrews, USN (Ret.); Mr. Kurt Bauch; AMCS Daniel Brady, USN (Ret.); Mr. Melvin J. Cranmer; Mrs. Elsie C. Harwood; Cdr. Harry J. Heuster, USN (Ret.); Mr. Charles Kauffman; Mr. Douglas Leigh; the late Cdr. Joseph P. Norfleet, USN (Ret.); Mr. Jack R. Poppele; Mr. Paul G. Richter; Cdr. John B. Rieker, USN (Ret.); Lt. Charles M. Ruth, USN (Ret); Rear Adm. Leroy C. Simpler, USN (Ret.); the late Lt. Cdr. Frederick J. Tobin, USN (Ret.); Mr. F. W. Willy von Meister; Mr. Frank Wainwright; and Cdr. Richard W. Widdicombe, USN (Ret.).

Thanks to Mr. Winfield E. Fromm for materials relative to the development of magnetic airborne detection equipment, and to Dr. David C. Hazen for information regarding Princeton University’s flying wind tunnel project. Mr. Raymond F. Burd Jr. provided rare views of the Lakehurst Proving Ground. Mrs. Frederick J. Tobin graciously offered images from her late husband’s files. Mr. Clark L. Bunnell provided records relative to employment at Lakehurst during the 1930s. Capt. Harold B. Van Gorder, USN (Ret.), forwarded a copy of his report on the 1958 expedition by ZPG-2 into the Canadian Arctic. Mr. Charles L. Keller graciously loaned his notes compiled from research in the National Archives and in the Garland Fulton Papers.

The late Vice Adm. T. G. W. Tex Settle, USN (Ret.), submitted to an extensive correspondence and is an inspiration to the author. Thanks are due to the staff at the History of Aviation Collection, University of Texas at Dallas, for their assistance in the incomparable C. E. Rosendahl Collection, especially to Mr. Michael R. Quinn and Robert Kopitzke, curators. Mr. Marvin A. Krieger helped with collection images. Special mention is due Cdr. Charles A. Mills, USN (Ret.), and Rear Adm. Carl J. Seiberlich, USN (Ret.); each provided verbal progress reports concerning the naval airship program. As well, Commander Mills loaned invaluable documents and images, as did Cdr. Richard W. Widdicombe, USN (Ret.).

Others who provided useful materials were Mr. Henry J. Applegate; Mr. Don Brandemeuhl; Mrs. William F. Bucher; Mr. William W. Chapman; Mr. Barry J. Countryman; Lt. Gordon M. Cousins, USN (Ret.); Cdr. Richard E. Deal, USN (Ret.); Mr. James D. Dowd; Mr. Michael S. Fedosh; ADC Charles Gidrites, USN (Ret.); ADC John A. Iannaccone, USN (Ret.); ADC John A. Lust, USN (Ret.); Mr. Edgar L. Moore; Mr. Kevin Pace; Rear Adm. Scott E. Peck, USN (Ret.); Capt. Charles W. Roland, USN (Ret.); Mr. Ian Ross; Mr. David Smith; and Mr. Richard G. Van Treuren (Naval Airship Association).

Dr. Richard K. Smith assisted the author with research advice. Mr. I. Butch Grossman provided special advice and was more helpful than he could know. Mr. James R. Shock provided a wealth of documents. Dr. A. D. Topping (the Lighter-Than-Air Society) also was very helpful.

The author’s oral history research was supported, in part, by generous grants from the New Jersey Historical Commission in 1975, 1996, and 1999.

This book is the product of decades of research. Inevitably in a project of this scope, dozens of individuals assisted in a host of ways. I am grateful to each, including those whose names I may have omitted. All served to make this book better than it would have been otherwise.

Finally, mention is due several individuals. Thanks to Rick Russell, director, Naval Institute Press, and to Susan Todd Brook, senior acquisitions editor, this work (revised and updated) is again in print. With respect to the book’s superb production, the talents of Emily Bakely, senior production editor, and that of Maryam Rostamian, designer and compositor, must be acknowledged. Janis Jorgensen, lead archivist at the institute, provided valuable assistance. The hospitality of Capt. Robert D. McWethy, USN (Ret.), meant more than he can know. At the eleventh hour, Quentin Fleming, Rick Peuser (NARA), and Richard Van Treuren (Naval Airship Assoc.) lent yeoman’s service. And, as always, Penny was supportive, patient, and understanding.

Introduction

Lighter-than-air (LTA) craft are mankind’s oldest aircraft. In 1783, the first air passenger was carried aloft in a French balloon—more than a century before the Wright brothers’ heavier-than-air (HTA) machine. The new science of ballooning evolved slowly during the next hundred years. But the invention of reliable, lightweight engines transformed aeronautics. By the early 1900s, experimental power-driven balloons, or dirigibles, were being flown successfully by a host of pioneers in a number of countries.

The stimulus for the United States Navy’s lighter-than-air program dates to the early 1900s and to Germany. The first Zeppelin airship (LZ-1) made its maiden flight in 1900. In 1909, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, inventor of the rigid airship, founded the first commercial aerial transport company; one year later, passenger service was inaugurated. Between 1910 and 1914, the fledgling—and very lucky—airline established an all-but-forgotten record: nearly sixteen hundred flights, almost thirty-two hundred hours in the air, and more than ten thousand paying passengers without an injury.¹

The German military authorities were also attracted to this new vehicle. Commercial Zeppelin airships were chartered to train personnel. Both the army and navy ordered Zeppelins built and equipped for military service before the First World War. By its outbreak, German preeminence in lighter-than-air aeronautics was firmly established. The Zeppelin organization was promptly integrated into the national war effort. Years of design and experiment were compressed into each year of the conflict. The Allies scrambled to learn as much as possible regarding German airship trade secrets, but their technology lagged well behind that of their opponent.

The use of this novel weapon for offensive bombing of enemy cities provided an irresistible temptation. Zeppelin raids, it was assumed, would bring the war home to civilian populations, undermine national morale, and possibly force termination of hostilities. The first air raid using Zeppelins was conducted against Antwerp in August 1914. By 1916, these attacks were receiving enormous attention from the world’s press.

Zeppelin is a new word of terror which supplements the vocabularies of both England and France. These monster airships have destroyed the boasted security of the English people, based on isolation of the island. England has spent her millions to maintain master[y]of the seas, only to find the airships of Germany have free passage, against which no safeguards can be raised.²

Despite these exaggerations, the military results of the raids were a disappointment. The more effective use of Zeppelins as naval scouts over the Baltic and North Seas was far less known—but of intense interest to both Britain and the United States. Rigid airships flew scouting and defensive reconnaissance missions for the German navy, contributing materially to intelligence gathering. In terms of reconnaissance and mine-spotting, German airships also proved effective in the grim at-sea game of mine warfare between Britain and Germany.

The Allied powers were obliged to take note. As one U.S. Navy observer wrote, It seemed evident that a new weapon had appeared and that the United States should consider its possibilities carefully.³ Naval attachés abroad were instructed to furnish information relative to the construction and use of rigid airships. Consequently, samples from Zeppelins brought down by the Allies, as well as photographs and considerable hearsay, were passed on to Washington. Much of this intelligence was useless, but samples of their girders helped unlock the secret of the German aluminum alloy duralumin. The experience and resources of the Aluminum Company of America were enlisted to duplicate the alloy. Similarly, samples of gasbag fabric, which comprised the interior cells of rigid airships, were examined. Although the German process was never duplicated, a substitute method of manufacture was finally developed. These two efforts were to be essential to the American experiment with large airships.

The United States was still not at war, but U.S. observers in Europe were enthusiastic regarding Zeppelin airships as a weapon system. The U.S. Navy was interested. The rigid airship’s primary use appeared to be naval, but coastal defense also involved the Army. Thus, a Joint Army and Navy Airship Board was formed to address questions of policy. Efforts were initiated in 1917 to procure an airship from abroad while, concurrently, design work was begun by the Navy’s General Board.

Control car from L-49...

Control car from L-49 on display in Paris—one of eleven Zeppelins that attacked England in October 1917. Eager for German technology, the Allies investigated Zeppelins under the cloak of armistice, their bases disarmed. Forced down intact, L-49 became the design basis of the United States Navy’s first rigid airship (ZRs in naval parlance). Note the similarity between this car and that on page 32. D. H. Robinson

Engineers were recruited, and the myriad of technical problems attendant to airship design were examined. Important ancillary matters, such as hangars (sheds in Europe), production of lifting gas, and airship stations also were evaluated. America entered the war in April 1917. Impressed by the vulnerability of Zeppelins from their inflammable hydrogen, Britain pressed its ally to expand its helium-extraction facilities. The presence of commercial quantities of inert helium in natural gas in the Great Plains and the impetus of wartime demand would prove to be crucial—if an impediment—to America’s nascent LTA program.⁴

In July 1917 the recommendations of the Joint Board were presented. If American rigid airships were wanted for use in the European theater, they should be obtained in England. If operated in the continental United States, they should be constructed instead by Americans to establish the art. And in view of the very evident use the navy might have for large airships,⁵ the Navy Department was the logical organization to undertake all such development.

By early 1918 large airships were being mentioned before Congress in connection with wartime appropriations. The armistice intervened. Thus, the war ended before the United States Navy, starting from nothing, could build or procure a rigid airship. However, in July 1919, Congress authorized the Navy to establish a station to erect and operate large airships and to procure two aircraft. One ship was to be purchased abroad, a second built in the United States. This led to the purchase of the British R-38 (American ZR-2), the design and construction of Fleet Airship No. 1, known as USS Shenandoah (ZR-1), and the establishment of the Lakehurst naval air station.

Bodensee (LZ-120) at...

Bodensee (LZ-120) at Friedrichshafen, home of Luftschiffbau Zeppelin. Preeminent in the airship arts, Germany’s first postwar Zeppelin, Bodensee, operated commercially August–November 1919 before being hangared by the Inter-Allied Control Commission. Though not a regularly scheduled service, excursions via rigid airship were popular with Germans. U.S. Naval Institute photo archive

What underlay the Navy’s strong interest in airships? In the military environment of the interwar years, the large naval airship represented an ideal long-range reconnaissance platform over vast ocean areas. Cruisers were the conventional scouts for the fleet. In 1919, it must be recalled, the aircraft carrier had yet to appear. Seaplanes and land-based aircraft, moreover, enjoyed a relatively poor (tactical) performance when compared to the large airship’s extraordinary lift, range, and endurance: platforms for strategic search. America is essentially an island nation bounded by two great oceans into which an enemy force might vanish. Hence it was logical that the Navy remained interested in large airships into the 1930s.

Development of the rigid airship would overshadow the smaller nonrigid type until the eve of the Second World War.⁶ Yet the U.S. Navy’s LTA program had begun with blimps. A contract for the first non-rigid airship had been awarded in June 1915. The result was the DN-1 (Dirigible, Nonrigid, No. 1). The ship was not ready for trials at the new Pensacola training station until the spring of 1917. It was not an auspicious beginning.

[DN-1] was so overweight that it could barely lift itself. Its envelope leaked and the power plant functioned badly. It did, however, actually fly—and since the firm had built the ship in good faith and at a cost greatly in excess of the contract price [$45,636], it was formally accepted. . . . After a few short flights it was hangared, deflated, and dismantled.⁷

The Navy Department was determined not to repeat this failure. Based in part on information from attachés regarding antisubmarine operations over the English Channel by British airships (facetiously called blimps by HTA aviators), a new design was prepared. The Navy’s B-type airship had an 84,000-cubic-foot envelope volume and a twelve-hour endurance. The aircraft was little more than an airplane fuselage suspended beneath an envelope or bag. The Secretary of the Navy (SecNav) approved the design in January 1917. Only a prototype had been planned, but relations with Germany were disintegrating, so sixteen were ordered immediately. The contracts were placed in March 1917. The first ship (B-1) flew in May, and the initial delivery was made to Pensacola that July. Contractor expertise was pooled to meet the order, placed only sixty days prior to the declaration of war.

This order was a thunderbolt, as delivery in any reasonable time was out of the question from existing facilities. No firms had knowledge or experience, and no time could be allowed for experiment and research. There was also no time to build one airship and prove the design; all 16 were wanted at once.⁸

Nine were built by the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. Its aeronautical credentials dated from 1911 and emphasized lighter-than-air craft. The firm also assumed all airship training for the Navy. A few miles outside Akron, Ohio, at Wingfoot Lake, a landing field, hangar, shops, hydrogen plant, barracks, and mess halls were constructed. The first class of twelve student aviators began their training in June 1917. Senior officer present: Lt. Lewis H. Maxfield, USN.

An entire organization had to be created. The number of men in naval aviation barely exceeded two hundred, plus forty-eight officers. HTA training centers multiplied almost overnight to meet the wartime demand for flight personnel. LTA training centered in Ohio. The new curriculum would remain essentially unchanged through the 1930s: ground school instruction, then flight training commencing with observation balloons before progressing to free balloons and finally to blimps. The first naval aviators (dirigible) were designated in October 1917. These graduates were assigned to new patrol stations along the American East Coast or sent abroad to operate French airships from French bases. The focus for this patrol activity: German U-boat operations against Britain and France and the little-known campaign mounted against American shipping late in the war.

Floating hangar at Naval...

Floating hangar at Naval Air Station (NAS) Pensacola. Both the British and French had developed nonrigid airships (blimps) for antisubmarine patrol. In March 1915, Congress appropriated $1 million for U.S. Naval Aeronautics, after which the Navy Department completed specifications for its first airship. In 1917 a design competition resulted in DN-1, a humiliating disappointment. It flew, but logged only a few inconsequential flights before being stricken. C. E. Rosendahl Collection, HOAC/University of Texas

B-type nonrigid. Sixteen...

B-type nonrigid. Sixteen were ordered in March 1917 for training and for patrol against prowling German submarines. The ship was little more than an airplane fuselage suspended beneath an 84,000-cubic-foot envelope, or bag. Endurance: sixteen hours in a cramped, open car alive with engine noise and propeller blast. Lifting gas: hydrogen. U.S. Naval Institute photo archive

Antisubmarine patrols, convoy escort, and photographic missions were conducted from now-forgotten bases on both sides of the North Atlantic foreshadowing another naval war two decades later. The B-class ships flew more than thirteen thousand hours along the East Coast, but they had little direct combat experience and sunk no submarines. The Navy had chosen the flying boat as its priority air weapon against the submerged enemy. Nonetheless, as far as the LTA community was concerned, its wartime contribution was an important one.

The airship’s greatest value to the Allies during the past war was in convoy work. Indeed, it was common knowledge that a submarine would not attack a convoy escorted by airships. The value depended not so much on their ability to detect a submarine previous to its attack, but on the certainty of their locating the submarine after a torpedo attack, with the resultant destruction of the submarine by depth charges from either the airship or the surface escort.⁹

The Navy by 1918...

The Navy by 1918 had accumulated design and operational experience. The C-type was designed by the Bureau of Construction and Repair (Aircraft Division). Increased power and endurance granted loiter capability with convoys—and twin-engine reliability. The last of ten procurements was delivered in March 1919. In 1921, C-7 would log the first flight of an airship inflated with helium. U.S. Naval Institute photo archive

The Navy by 1918 had accumulated a measure of design confidence and operational experience. A wholly new aircraft, the C-type, was designed and thirty ships ordered. This was subsequently reduced to ten after the armistice. Twin engines were the principal design improvement, providing greater reliability, speed, and endurance for loitering with convoys. Envelope volume: 181,000 cubic feet. Further modifications to the C-class and entirely new designs were built and explored following the Great War. By fall 1922, and following flight trials of the new J-type, the blimp had evolved into a significant instrument of naval warfare.

But the rigid airship was destined to absorb the energies and resources of the new program. The blimp was relegated to training officers and crewmen for the big ships, which would dominate naval and also commercial lighter-than-air aeronautics to 1937.

However, by 1925 the military value of the large naval airship was itself being questioned. No one could foresee that the weapon system would not survive the politics and technological advances of the interwar period. This stumbling progress, moreover, would compromise the evolution of the nonrigid type and contribute significantly to the demise of the U.S. Navy’s entire lighter-than-air experiment. But these developments were in the future.

An aerology (meteorology)...

An aerology (meteorology) class, NAS Pensacola, 1922. Airship operations demanded knowledge of weather, particularly surface and lower-level winds. The U.S. Navy’s LTA program would help realize quantum improvements in weather analysis and forecasting. NARA

1

Establishing an Air Station

The village of Lakehurst, New Jersey, was founded in 1841. Tucked away in the lonely Pine Barrens, it remained a small and isolated community. The Central Railroad of New Jersey defined the character of the place for half a century. It seemed that everyone in town either worked on the line or was dependent on someone who did. By 1900, however, Lakehurst had achieved some celebrity as a health resort. The Pine Tree Inn, a rambling hotel opened in 1898, attracted tourists for a few decades until it was razed in 1937.

The association of Lakehurst with the military began during the First World War. Early in 1915, representatives from the British government opened negotiations with American manufacturers for the production of shells for the imperial Russian government. The Baldwin Locomotive Works of Philadelphia agreed to make artillery ammunition. On 10 June 1915, a new company was organized—The Eddystone Ammunition Corporation—to execute the contract. Since their ammunition and that from other firms would require field testing, a proving ground was established fifty miles away near Lakehurst. A site was selected north of the village on high ground between Manapaqua Brook and the Ridgeway Branch. The test site consisted of little more than a long firing range cleared through the scrub oak and pine, with an unpaved road and observation structures spaced along its length.

Ultimately, Eddystone tested lots representing some 7,600,000 shrapnel and high-explosive shells for the Russian regime. A subsidiary was also organized in September 1917, the Eddystone Munitions Company, to manufacture a variety of munitions for the U.S. government.

The United States entered the European war in April 1917. The U.S. Army acquired the proving ground area later that year and began to develop the site as an experimental ground for gas warfare. This decision was reached in September, but work on the site was not started until late March 1918. Firing trials by the Chemical Warfare Service (Proving Division) began that April. The camp was a large one. As well as having firing ranges, the facility was equipped with permanent gun positions, batteries of several caliber, magazines, rail sidings for delivery of ordnance, laboratories, barracks, and related structures. Security was exceedingly tight and both officers and enlisted personnel were selected with great care. The purpose of the camp: to test, in actual large-scale field trials, new gases, which from laboratory tests look promising.¹ Two lines of trenches equipped for gas sampling were constructed near the impact areas to simulate those on the European battlefield. Cloud-gas attacks and other experiments with mustard gas were conducted. The camp’s artillery detachment fired shells into the trenches and nearby terrain to note the concentration of gas and its effects on animals in the test areas. This activity increased in intensity up to the armistice, when all such work was abruptly terminated.

The war demonstrated a need for officers trained in gas warfare, so, in 1918, a training camp for the Chemical Warfare Service was established southeast of the proving ground. Construction began in August. Intended to accommodate 1,300 officers and men, the 733-acre camp was located on part of the proving ground reservation one mile north of Lakehurst. The Army designated the facility Camp Kendrick, in honor of a former West Point professor. Barracks and officers quarters, mess halls, administration buildings, an infirmary, power house, and other structures were quickly erected. The first complement of 10 officers and 283 men arrived at the incomplete camp in September. But training for gas warfare and the work of the nearby proving ground had yet to reach their fullest potential before the armistice was signed in November 1918. As America demobilized, the new camp was used briefly to muster