LTA and WWII: role of Navy airships often forgotten

DAV Magazine, May-June, 2002 by Rob Lewis

Two storms ...

On May 6, 1937, Harold Edwards watched a cigar-shaped behemoth cutting across a turbulent New York skyline.

The weather was rough, and he could see violent cracks of lightning from a window in his home on 2nd Street in the shadow of the Empire State Building.

"It was so big, there'es no way I could forget it," recalled Mr. Edwards, a DAV life member from New Port Richey, Fla.

The massive silver airship Mr. Edwards saw moving through the storm was the Hindenburg, a rigid German airship, or dirigible, on its first trans-Atlantic crossing of the year. It was a symbol of German pride and nationalism and reflected not only Germany's belief in superior craftmanship and design, but also her fascination with airships.

This fascination was shared by the United States military after witnessing the successful use of the dirigibles by Germany and France in World War I. The U.S. Navy, in particular, took notice of rigids, possibly foreseeing their usefullness in anti-submarine missions, minesweeping, and rescue operations.

That early May flight of the Hindenburg put a cautious edge of any U.S. plans for investing in dirigibles for future military use. As it attempted to land at the Naval Air Station (NAS), Lakehurst, N.J., the hydrogen-filled Hindenburg burst into flames. The airship carried 97 crewmen and passengers; 35 died in the fiery crash, as did one member of the ground crew.

The well-publicized crash would effectively end the use of rigid airship for commercial travel, but the Navy's interest in the airships did not vanish completely in the flames. Thousands of Americans, like Harold Edwards, would soon begin an assocation with non-rigid airships, or blimps, that would be largely ignored in most history books.

Just as a violent storm accompanied the arrival of airships into Mr. Edwards' life, another storm steered his path back to blimps a few years later. It was the thunder of the attack on Pearl Harbor, launching the United States into World War II.

The work horse ...

At the beginning of World War II, the Navy's Lighter Than Air (LTA) inventory consisted of 10 non-rigid airships. NAS Lakehurst was the only LTA station.

The Navy's rather limited LTA fleet included two TC-type airships (remnants of the Army's defunct LTA program), one G-type blimp, three L-type trainers, and four K-type airships. The M-type airship would later be added to the Navy's World War II LTA arsenal.

While the L-type airships would earn their keep in the massive blimp hangers primarily as training ships for up-and-coming pilots and crews, the K-type blimps would earn the reputation as the "work-horse" of World War II LTA missions.

Just over 250 feet in length, the K-ship was well equipped with communications gear and instruments for "blind" and night flying. Each airship had an ASG-type radar with a 90-mile detection radius, Loran long-range navigations systems, and underwater search equipment, such as sonobuoys and MAD (magnetic anomaly detection) gear.

The K-type was the first Navy airship with an internally suspended control car, which was 40 feet long and carried the crew, power source, armaments, and most of the equipment.

The blimp's arsenal usually consisted of four depth charges, two on the control car's external bomb racks and two in the bomb bay, and a .50-caliber aircraft machine gun in the forward turret. Some blimps were equipped with automatic rifles that could be fired from removable windows in the aft of the control car.

During war, the K-ship carried a flight crew of nine skilled men, including a command pilot, one or two co-pilots, two mechanics, two airship riggers, and two radiomen.

While officers were primarily responsible for the piloting and navigation duties aboard the blimps, the strong training and team-work ensured most crewmembers could handle most jobs, including flying the airships.

"I was trained to work the radio and radar," said Thomas Morris, a DAV life member from New Jersey who served with LTA squadrons in Lakehurst and Brazil. "On long flights, I relieved the co-pilot and helped in other areas.

"There wasn't much most of us couldn't do aboard a blimp," he said.

No matter what their position on the airship or with the ground crews, the LTA sailors helped take back the dangerous waters of World War II.

The war on water ...

With war raging in Europe in June of 1940, Congress passed legislation, which, among other things, provided for the construction of 48 new non-rigid airships to bolster the Navy's lagging LTA assets. This increase in airship production, however, pales in comparison to the 200 authorized by Congress in 1942.

When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the Navy's LTA program still had only 100 pilots and another 100 enlisted crewmembers. More importantly, the LTA program was without any kind of organization to conduct operations in the fleet.

Recognizing the shortage, the Navy began scouring universities for potential pilots and crewmembers.

"We had already been through the Navy's navigation training and knew all the naval basics," said Elliot Steinman, a blimp pilot. "The Navy condensed the one-year training program for blimp pilots down to three months. They called us `90-day wonders.'"