Rear Admiral Herbert V. Wiley
Rear Admiral Herbert V. Wiley

Author: Ernest Marshall

Publisher: Naval Institute Press

Published: 2018-09-25

Total Pages: 373

ISBN-13: 168247318X

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This book is, simultaneously, a biography of Admiral Herbert Victor Wiley and a history of the U.S. Navy’s lighter-than-air program. As tensions rose between Japan and the U.S. over control of East Asia and the Pacific Ocean, the prospects of war between the two nations increased. The Navy tracked the Germans’ use of zeppelins during the First World War and saw in them an aircraft with the potential to conduct long-range reconnaissance over the oceans – something that could not be achieved by airplanes or surface ships. While rapid progress was being made in manned flight, it was still young enough that the future of LTA vs. HTA flight was unknown. At the time, however, airships had a much greater range than airplanes making them suitable for reconnaissance. In its history, the Navy had four great airships – the U.S.S. Shenandoah, the U.S.S. Los Angeles, the U.S.S. Akron, and the U.S.S. Macon. Wiley served on all four of these airships and the history of these vessels is covered through the career of Wiley. Three of the airships ended in disaster and Wiley survived the crash of two of them. The book explores in detail the events leading to the crash of each airship through examination of the records of the Navy’s Courts of Inquiry that investigated the cause of each crash. The book also tracks issues surrounding the use of non-flammable helium as a lifting gas instead of highly explosive hydrogen used by the Germans. The U.S. had a monopoly on the supply of helium. While Germany sought to purchase helium from the U.S., the government board governing the sale of helium blocked is availability to Germany on the basis it might be used for wartime purposes. Dr. Hugo Eckener had run the Zeppelin works in Friedrichshaven since the end of WWI and he had a vision for LTA flight that was peaceful, including international transoceanic passenger and freight services. The outbreak of WW II ended the zeppeling industry and dashed all of Eckener’s dreams. Following the crash of the Macon, Wiley returned to the surface fleet, eventually becoming Commander of Destroyer Squadron 29 in the Asiatic Fleet shortly before the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Sky Ships
Sky Ships

Author: William F Althoff

Publisher: Naval Institute Press

Published: 2016-02-15

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 1612519016

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Originally published in 1990, Sky Ships is easily the most comprehensive history of U.S. Navy airships ever written. The Naval Institute Press is releasing this new edition— complete with two hundred new photographs—to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the book’s publication. Impressed by Germany’s commercial and military Zeppelins, the United States initiated its own airship program in 1915. Naval Air Station Lakehurst in New Jersey was homeport for several of the largest machines ever to navigate the air. The success of the commercial rigid airship peaked in 1936 with transatlantic round trips between Central Europe and the Americas by Hindenburg and by Graf Zeppelin— ending with the infamous fire in 1937. That setback, the onset of war, and the accelerated progress of heavier-than-air technology ended rigid airship development. The Navy continued to use blimps to protect Allied shipping during World War II. Following the war, the Navy persisted with efforts to integrate the airships, but the program was finally discontinued in the early 1960s.

Volume I: U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Coast Guard Aircraft Lost During World War II - Listed by Ship Attached
Volume I: U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Coast Guard Aircraft Lost During World War II - Listed by Ship Attached

Author:

Publisher: Lulu.com

Published: 2011-07-25

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 1257822322

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During World War II, the U.S. military lost some 35,000 aircraft to enemy action, training incidents, typhoons, aircraft carrier deck mishaps, mechanical failures or just normal wear-and-tear where aircraft were scrapped and used for parts to keep others flying. Many just failed to return from their missions. To date, the 15,069 aircraft represented in this 3-volume set is information initially transferred from hand-written "Aircraft History Cards" and are the total number of U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard aircraft lost between 7 December 1941 and 15 August 1945, and lost outside the continental United States (CONUS). Volume I represents the information on any aircraft lost that was attached to the 197 different ships in the database. Given the thousands of hours that went into this effort, the author hopes that, as a 3-volume set of reference books, it provides assistance to others who are researching ship, squadron and aircraft histories.

The Wreck of the Naval Airship USS Shenandoah
The Wreck of the Naval Airship USS Shenandoah

Author: Jerry Copas

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2017-08-21

Total Pages: 128

ISBN-13: 1439661960

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The USS Shenandoah was the pride of the American Navy in 1925 and America's first rigid dirigible. Her name is a Native American word often said to mean "Daughter of the Stars." While performing a publicity tour in the Midwest, the ship was ripped to pieces by a violent storm. Fourteen men died, including Lt. Comdr. Zachary Lansdowne, who remained at his post to the very end. The citizens of Noble County, Ohio, were alarmed and amazed when this high-tech, state-of-the-art marvel came tumbling out of the sky into their rural and isolated community. While lavishing care and support on the wounded, the locals also looted the wreckage and made souvenirs of valuable equipment that remained family treasures for years. Tales of daring heroism and sacrifice by those brave sailors on that stormy night soon became the thing of legend to the residents of the valley. For nearly 100 years, people there have maintained the legacy of Shenandoah with monuments, songs, and commemorations that continue to this day.

ADMIRAL WILLIAM A MOFFETT
ADMIRAL WILLIAM A MOFFETT

Author: William F. Trimble

Publisher: Smithsonian Books (DC)

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13:

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"More than any other individual, Rear Adm. William A. Moffett (1869-1933) shaped naval aviation during its critical formative years in the twenties and early thirties. In this first full biography, William F. Trimble shows that Moffett's remarkably sophisticated understanding of what later would be called the military-industrial complex laid the groundwork for the force that fought and won World War II in the Pacific." "There was little, Trimble contends, in Moffett's early career that pointed to the pivotal role he would play in naval aviation. Born in Charleston, South Carolina, the Annapolis graduate won the Medal of Honor as captain of the cruiser Chester during the 1914 landing at Veracruz. During World War I, as commanding officer of the Great Lakes Naval Training Station near Chicago, he joined with the local business elite to launch an aviation training program. Later, commanding the battleship Mississippi, he supported the formation of a ship plane unit and befriended aviation pioneer Henry Mustin, a strong advocate of fleet aviation." "Trimble shows that Moffett's real influence began with his work to establish the Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics in 1921. Serving as the bureau's chief until his death, Moffett integrated the use of airplanes and airships with fleet operations, managed the introduction of new technology - most notably the aircraft carrier - and rationalized procurement and personnel. Although the Navy was traditionally "the silent service," Moffett used public relations opportunities to promote naval aviation and to defeat the military, political, and bureaucratic opponents of his agenda. Trimble describes the admiral's highly publicized confrontation with Brig. Gen. William ("Billy") Mitchell, who agitated for a unified air force at the expense of a separate naval air arm." "Recognizing Moffett's gifted stewardship of the Bureau of Aeronautics, Trimble also recounts several of his obvious failures. Among them was his avid support for the large rigid airship as a solution to naval reconnaissance problems. Moffett lost his life in 1933, when he went down with the airship Akron off the coast of New Jersey."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Lost at Sea
Lost at Sea

Author: David Boyle

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2016-05-06

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781533131546

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"We returned to our loved ones, but we were never the same again. Most were markedly changed. Young boys had become mature older men, aged beyond their years. All because of those days in the sea." For five days near the end of the Second World War, the USS Indianapolis disappeared from the map. After being hit by two torpedoes from a Japanese submarine, the warship sank within twelve minutes: 900 men out of a crew of 1200 managed to jump free. But by the time they were found, all that time later, the survivors had plummeted to just 316 men. The story of how that happened, and how the few that remained of her crew were eventually rescued from the mid-Pacific, have become one of the most enduring - and notorious - of wartime sea stories. But the meaning of the Indianapolis goes beyond a simple sinking. What makes the story of this American warship so compelling is that it was important in so many ways. It was the flagship of the fighting admiral Raymond Spruance, in 1943-44, during the crucial battles to control the central Pacific. It delivered the key components of the first atomic bomb dropped in anger, in this case on Hiroshima. It was the greatest single loss of life at sea in an American naval disaster at war. It goes down in history as the biggest attack by sharks on human beings ever recorded. It also became a huge scandal as naval authorities tried to cover-up what had gone wrong, and why the crew had been inadvertently left to die. This book is designed to interweave all these themes to provide a short and informative, and above all, readable, guide to the Indianapolis story, and to also tell the intertwined tales of the two men at the heart of the story: Captain Charles McVay and the man who sank the ship, Mochitsura Hashimoto.