From: Sonny Heath (sonny@defuniak.com)
Date: Mon Jan 02 2006 - 15:00:07 PST
Everette,
I'm enjoying the history reminders you send us,
Thanks,
Sonny
----- Original Message -----
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Tue Jul 18 2006 - 21:39:01 PDT
From: "Everette" <194cbteng@bellsouth.net>
To: "Military Vehicles Mailing List" <mil-veh@mil-veh.org>
Sent: Monday, January 02, 2006 1:15 PM
Subject: [MV] 1942 Navy opens a blimp base in New Jersey
> January 2
>
> 1942 Navy opens a blimp base in New Jersey
>
> On this day, the Navy Airship Patrol Group 1 and Air Ship Squadron 12 are
> established at Lakehurst, N.J. The U.S. Navy was the only military service
> in the world to use airships--also known as blimps--during the war.
> The U.S. Navy was actually behind the times in the use of blimps; it
> didn't get around to ordering its first until 1915, at which time even the
> U.S. Army was using them. By the close of World War I, the Navy had
> recognized their value and was using several blimps for patrolling
> coastlines for enemy submarines. They proved extremely effective; in fact,
> no convoy supported by blimp surveillance ever lost a ship.
> Between the wars, it was agreed that the Army would use nonrigid airships
> to patrol the coasts of the United States, while the Navy would use rigid
> airships (which were aluminum-hulled and kept their shape whether or not
> they were filled with gas) for long-range scouting and fleet support. The
> Navy ended its construction and employment of the rigid airships in the
> 1930s after two, the Akron and the Macon, crashed at sea. In 1937, the
> Army transferred all its remaining nonrigid blimps to the Navy.
> Meanwhile, in the civilian world, the Hindenburg, a commercial dirigible,
> burst into flames over Lakehurst on May 6, 1937. Thirty-six of the 97
> passengers aboard were killed. The explosion was caused by an electric
> discharge that ignited a hydrogen gas leak; the tragedy effectively ended
> the use of airships for commercial travel, but they were still used to
> great advantage in the U.S. military.
> At the outbreak of World War II, the Navy had 10 blimps in service; that
> number expanded to 167 by the end of the war. The only U.S. blimp lost was
> the K-74, which, on July 18, 1943, spotted a German U-boat. The blimp
> opened fire on the submarine and damaged it, but only one of its two depth
> charges released. The submarine fired back and sent the blimp into the
> sea, but the crew was rescued. The only German blimp involved in the war
> was a passenger craft, Graf Zeppelin, which was used for electronic
> surveillance just before the outbreak of the war.
>
> And as a note to this it is my understanding the only balloon training
> base during WW II was at Paris Tennessee, some of the original building
> are still standing and in use by an industry that supplies clay used in
> the manufacture of ceramic toilet fixtures.
>
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