Is that possible? Could anyone have imagined?
While I was familiar with the Hindenburg, I had no idea how far back the inception went or how extensively 'airships' were used during war time.
It is important to note the difference between a blimp & a zeppelin. A blimp is like a balloon, soft shelled like the Good Year Blimp that uses a lifting gas like helium. The zeppelin has a rigid shell covered by a fabric that encases many individual gas cells and it has engines; the rigid shell allows it to be built much larger than a blimp.
 |
| courtesy of |
The concept of an airship was literally that, a ship in the air!
Contrived in 1670, it was the brain-child of Jesuit Father, Francesco Lana de Terzi, a priest, mathematician, naturalist & aeronautics pioneer.
While the concept is as impossible today as it was then due to the design & weight, it was the first using the vacuum principle.
From there, there were many types created right down to the ship being carried by a balloon - which I have seen in movies but I really thought it was the imagination of some Hollywood writer, not reality!
But in 1785, Blanchard crossed the English channel in exactly that, a ship being carried by a balloon! Note the wings & tail designed for propulsion & steering - I can't even....who knew! This was real!!
Throughout the 19th century, the concept continued to grow with many designs & flights. But my interest is in the use of air ships as a military machine, again, I had no clue!
The first use of an airship in a war was during the Civil War when Solomon Andrews gave his to the US Military in 1863 (a blimp rather than the zeppelin which wasn't fully invented until 1899).
While they were used in several wars over the years, they were vulnerable once areoplanes took to the air and they were useless for targeted bombing which was the primary interest & use intially, along with scouting.But that didn't stop the various countries from trying to fine tune these devices for their uses - including the United States - and continues to this day.
Having said that, with success comes failure and here is where our lines tie in.
The US Navy experimented with using airships as airborne aircraft carriers before WWII. There were three in particular but they were lost to accidents - and the USS Akron was the worst and worse than the Hidenburg.
The USS Akron was the used to carry F9C Sparrowhawk fighter planes between 1931 and the accident of 1933.
After casting off on the 4th of April in 1933, the airship ran into a storm that the captains couldn't out maneuver.
It was slammed by an updraft then a downdraft that left the vessel facing tail first into the ocean where the fin broke off causing the Akron to go down - only 3 survived, 73 died.
One of the men who died was Hilbert Norman Graves.
He was the son of William Richard Graves & Sarah Henrietta Baldwin. In 1929, he married Marie A Sommerfeld, the daughter of Martin L Sommerfeld & Emma Bernice Specht. In the 4 short years of marriage, they had no children & Marie never remarried.
The Noon, Reunion Edition, Summer 2007
Marie Graves, 97, of Manchester , NJ, died February 12 at Community Medical Center, Toms River. She had been in poor health and living in a Nursing Home facility for several years. Marie was, as far as we know, the last living widow left behind from the crash of the USS Akron, (ZRS4) at sea off Barnegat, NJ, April 4, 1933 which took the life of her husband, Aviation Machinist's Mate 3rd Class Hilbert N Graves and 72 others aboard. Marie was born in Trenton, NJ and met Hilbert Graves when he was just starting Rigid Airship duty. It was her intention that as a Navy wife married to a man in a glamorous branch of the service flying the great dirigibles, she would eventually get to "see the world." As it turned out, she never got much beyond Lakehurst, NJ, some 35 miles from her birthplace. In their short married life together, they never had children and she never remarried. Marie got a teaching degree from Trenton State Teacher's College and settle in to a 30 year career as an elementary school teacher in the town of Lakehurst, where she also served as something of an unofficial historian, Girls Scout leader and a pillar of the small community. She was a member of the Naval Airship Association, the Lakehurst Elementary Education Association and the Lakehurst Borough Historical Society as well as a parishioner at St John's Roman Catholic Church, Lakehurst for over 70 years.
Marie Graves, 97, of Manchester , NJ, died February 12 at Community Medical Center, Toms River. She had been in poor health and living in a Nursing Home facility for several years. Marie was, as far as we know, the last living widow left behind from the crash of the USS Akron, (ZRS4) at sea off Barnegat, NJ, April 4, 1933 which took the life of her husband, Aviation Machinist's Mate 3rd Class Hilbert N Graves and 72 others aboard. Marie was born in Trenton, NJ and met Hilbert Graves when he was just starting Rigid Airship duty. It was her intention that as a Navy wife married to a man in a glamorous branch of the service flying the great dirigibles, she would eventually get to "see the world." As it turned out, she never got much beyond Lakehurst, NJ, some 35 miles from her birthplace. In their short married life together, they never had children and she never remarried. Marie got a teaching degree from Trenton State Teacher's College and settle in to a 30 year career as an elementary school teacher in the town of Lakehurst, where she also served as something of an unofficial historian, Girls Scout leader and a pillar of the small community. She was a member of the Naval Airship Association, the Lakehurst Elementary Education Association and the Lakehurst Borough Historical Society as well as a parishioner at St John's Roman Catholic Church, Lakehurst for over 70 years.
No comments:
Post a Comment