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.
Taken from: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/navy-opens-a-blimp-base-in-new-jersey [02.01.2015]
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