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
24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First printing
To the memory of my father—
whose curiosity started all this
CONTENTS
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Afterword
Appendices
A Commanding Officers, NAS Lakehurst (1921–62)
B Performance and Other Data for U.S. Navy Airships (1915–61)
C U.S. Navy Lighter-Than-Air Headquarters and Facilities, Second World War
D Memorandum on Status of Lighter-Than-Air (1959)
E Postwar Airship Deliveries to the U.S. Navy (1952–60)
F Last Airships in the U.S. Navy Aircraft Inventory
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
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