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The USS Shenandoah and the Early Years

The 1920 naval appropriations bill had allocated $4,000,000 for two rigid airships. A British ship, ZR-2, was to be delivered as early as practicable to train personnel and to gain operating experience, and $1,500,000 had been allocated for construction of an American airship. The ZR-1 was intended as a strategic scout for the fleet and represented, moreover, an effort to initiate an airship industry in the United States. During the next fifteen years, the Navy’s LTA program would break new ground in several ancillary fields: aluminum alloys for aircraft, the commercial production of helium, impermeable fabrics (for gas cells and outer cover), meteorology, and the study of aerodynamics. America was determined to be first in the air. Commercial transoceanic airships would carry the flag to every continent, exploiting the experience nurtured by the Navy and its airship program. ZR-1 was the vanguard.

The Navy Department will operate this ship to demonstrate its usefulness not only for naval and military purposes, but for its commercial uses. It is hoped that ZR-1 is the forerunner of great commercial air lines of similar ships, carrying passengers and freight between our great cities, across the continent and to our island possessions.¹

Starr Truscott and his staff began work on the design in September 1919, the same month construction commenced on the Lakehurst station. The entire project, from an engineering point of view, was a novel challenge for the small American team. The project involved new materials and unfamiliar construction methods, exploration of new technologies, and a host of formidable engineering problems. The group was in no position to completely design a new airship. A wholly original design would have taken too long in any case. It was decided to imitate the Zeppelin model, using independent strength calculations to ensure structural adequacy, improvising along the way. A ship of less than 2-million-cubic-foot displacement was therefore selected, adapted to American power plants and materials. As one consequence, the new ship represented an amalgam of foreign design influences and was well out of date before being flown.

As with any prototype, there were design headaches and delays. Redesign of the power cars and associated equipment, introduction of full cantilever fins, and the addition of bow mooring gear, for example, were painstakingly evaluated, modifications proposed and finally approval given. In all, five alternate layouts of the basic design for “Fleet Airship No. 1” were prepared between 1919 and 1921. Indeed, the length of the ship’s hull and the number and placement of the power cars were discussed, tested, changed, and altered yet again before the final design was approved on 4 October 1921.

NAS Lakehurst. From its germinal years, Navy thinking as to large airships was concerned with ways and means for establishing the type for naval and for commercial applications. On 21 December 1922, an “All Ships and Stations” was circulated. Subject: “Officers for duty on board rigid airships.” Objective: to train naval aviators and to develop doctrine. All LTA activity—free and kite balloons, blimps, and the big ships—would be concentrated here. The village of Lakehurst is at the bottom left. NARA

Experiments relative to fabrication and construction methods at the Naval Aircraft Factory also consumed the calendar. Aluminum was one challenge. After considerable experimentation, the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) succeeded in developing processes for rolling and stamping the alloy into girders, lattices, and rivets.² By February 1921, the firm was able to start preliminary deliveries for assembly into test girders. This was the first time that the factory had worked extensively with aluminum. The experience gained with ZR-1 soon would be applied to heavier-than-air aviation.³

Lighter-Than-Air Operations, U.S. Naval Aviation, for Fiscal Year Ending 30 June 1921

Source: Aviation magazine.

No ZRs were yet operational. For its part, HTA logged twenty-four times as many hours as LTA did, with flying boats the then-backbone of naval aeronautics. Still, the Navy was charged with development. A large investment for large airships was imminent.

Original estimates had the airship assembled by early 1922, but the hangar was completed behind schedule, and the airship erection work was not begun until that spring. In Philadelphia the sheet aluminum was worked into channels and lattices, which then were riveted into triangular girders for the ship’s main and intermediate rings, longitudinal members, and her keel structure. Finally, at the end of January 1922, the the factory announced that the first shipment to Lakehurst would commence in a few weeks.

The parts were transported to Lakehurst by truck and by rail. The first ring or frame, from midships, reached the base in late April. This was quickly assembled on the hangar deck and, on 24 April 1922, was hoisted into a vertical position and supported from below.

The ship’s frame now grew rapidly forward and aft. The hull of a rigid airship was composed of alternately spaced main and intermediate rings, or frames, connected by longitudinal girders. At the base of the framework a triangular cross section of girders formed the keel of the ship. The concentrated weights (fuel, ballast, and other useful loads) were distributed along the keel passageway, which ran through the aircraft. Radial and chord wiring strengthened the frames and kept the individual rings separated and aligned despite the various static and dynamic loads imposed on the structure.

Gradually, the long cylinder-like hull took shape. By mid-August, eleven of the frames were in place; by November the hull was about 75 percent complete. The ship’s gas cells were readied for installation. The transverse network of tensioned wires that gave strength and stability to the rings also provided bulkheads, which divided the hull into ten-meter bays. Her twenty gas cells were fitted into these, providing the lifting element of the aircraft. On 23 November, the first cell was lifted into its bay amidships and test inflated with air to 100 percent fullness.

Crews to man the new ship had become a matter of some urgency. Thus, on 21 December 1922, a request was issued by the Bureau of Navigation to “All Ships and Stations” relative to officer volunteers for rigid-airship training. Selected by Adm. William A. Moffett to command the ship was Cdr. Frank R. McCrary, USN, a naval aviator with LTA war experience. The choice would prove to be a poor one. He accepted the command against his will and was on record as favoring flying boats over the airship. Forty-one officers responded to the request for volunteers, and nine were selected for duty, among them an officer destined to become synonymous with Navy lighter-than-air, Lt. Charles E. Rosendahl. The thirty-year-old officer requested airship duty in January 1923, and on 7 April he reported “to the commanding officer of the Naval Air Station, Lakehurst, N.J., for duty in connection with the fitting out of rigid airships.” Two days later, he was appointed a student naval aviator, detailed “for duty involving actual flying in aircraft, including dirigibles, balloons, and airplanes.”

ZR-1 introduced novel problems in hull-strength calculations (a Zeppelin secret), shop practice, and for the erection of very large aircraft. Duralumin—a lightweight German-made alloy—was a new art in America. Development of a suitable U.S.-produced alloy was the product of a cooperative effort that by about 1921 realized Zeppelin-type components of ample strength and lightness. Fabrication work was done at the Naval Aircraft Factory in Philadelphia, with the parts shipped to Lakehurst. The experience gained with aluminum was promptly applied to airplanes. C. E. Rosendahl Collection, HOAC/University of Texas

Ground school opened on 15 March 1923. Commander McCrary set the tone and outlined his personal views relative to the assignment before them all:

The purpose of this lecture is to start a ground school course of instruction for the personnel detailed as crews for the ZR-1. We are very much handicapped in this work in that none of the officers concerned have had sufficient experience to qualify as an authority on the subject and it may surprise some of you to find that you have been detailed to give lectures on subjects of which you have little if any previous knowledge. We have Captain [Anton] Heinen with us, who has had a large experience in handling dirigibles in Germany; it would however be impossible for Captain Heinen alone to carry out this course of instruction in the limited time, so we will have to utilize his services in an advisory capacity and as the flight instructor when flights are begun.⁴

ZR-1, June 1923. The outer cover of “doped” cotton fabric is being laced to the 680-foot airframe—the panels tailored to the ship’s lines. At left, a gas cell lies on the deck. The approximate cost for each of these fragile chambers was about $18,000. Installation and inflation required “care, experience and patience, but one which was truly rewarding as one watched each of the huge cells fill out to become a key lifting element of the airship.” Note the railway spur through the room—berthing space for two ZRs. R. F. Burd Jr.

The proposed syllabus was divided into a number of areas, with specific officers from this inaugural class assigned to prepare both lectures and the practical work to follow. Many of topics became an integral component of LTA training: navigation; “aeronautical seamanship” (aerology, ground handling, aerostatics, and aerodynamics); rigid airship design and structure; airship maintenance; power plants; communications; helium; and, of course, the actual flight training. Instruction of the enlisted personnel at this point consisted solely of practical instruction, except for being present at selected lectures given to the officer complement.

Keel of ZR-1. This “catwalk” supported concentrated weights and formed a corridor through the hull. Note the lattice-type girders, wire bracing, and the aluminum fuel tanks. Extending bow to stern, this main avenue of communications housed fuel, oil, water ballast, food lockers, bunks, living quarters, head, and access to the control car (bridge) and engine cars. R. F. Burd Jr.

As yet, there were no ships to fly. Although McCrary had considered it “essential” to have at least one small airship in inventory for training, none were made available for the ZR-1 trainees until J-1 made her first Lakehurst flight in May 1924. But balloons were available. Practical training in aerostatics was provided by taking the men up in kite (or captive) balloons, at least one of which was selected for shipment to Lakehurst from the Rockaway New York air station in August 1921. And that December, less than three months before the course began, the Bureau of Aeronautics (BuAer) approved the shipment of three free balloons to Lakehurst for training.

A free balloon (ZF) lifting off. An airship is a balloon with engines, exquisitely sensitive to atmospheric conditions that must be anticipated. If control is lost, the ship reverts to balloon. Thus, aerostatics was practiced using balloons. Note the dropped ballast, sand trough on the basket’s rim (disposable ballast), and drag rope (left), an “automatic ballast” on approach for landing. Lt. Cdr. L. E. Schellberg, USN (Ret.)

Follow for a moment Lieutenant Rosendahl’s LTA instruction in this formative period. Less than two weeks after reporting on board, he made his inaugural flight in a lighter-than-air craft, a kite balloon (No. A 6109) on 19 April 1923. Commander Weyerbacher was pilot. Ten kite up-and-downs were logged that day by the young officer, for a total time aloft of one hour and eleven minutes. Duration of each (tethered) flight: from five to nine minutes. On 4 May, Rosendahl was one of four passengers on a free balloon for another three hours and twenty-five minutes before touchdown near Whitesville, New Jersey. The other officer students were Lt. Herbert V. Wiley and Lt. Earle H. Kincaid. The future admiral’s second free balloon was not logged until August. By the date of his first flight aboard ZR-1, on 12 September, Lieutenant Rosendahl had accumulated a total flight time of eleven hours and forty-three minutes—all in balloons. No blimp time had yet been logged. He would not solo in a free balloon until 10 November. Finally, on 21 November, Rosendahl was directed to appear before a board to examine candidates for designation as naval aviator (airship). The next day, he was so designated, receiving aviator number 3174.⁵

A pigeon is “shoved off” to report landing. The basket and gear were manhandled onto a chase truck for return to Lakehurst. The training syllabus required seven flights for officers, three for enlisted personnel. Ballooning was a class in applied meteorology. Set against the backdrop of sky, a student’s observations were more enduring than any textbook explanation. Arnold/Author

On 1 February 1923 the hull structure of ZR-1 was virtually complete. The outer cover was now applied. Made of high-grade cotton fabric, the cover panels were laced tightly into place over the entire hull and given several coats of dope, which shrunk the material tight against the framework. Sealing strips doped into place between the individual panels provided a smooth outer surface over the joints and continuity to the ship’s exterior surface. The final coat was mixed with aluminum powder to provide a smooth, weather-resistant skin that also reflected the sun’s heat away from the lifting gas.

General outfitting of the airship began at this time: the ballast bags spaced along the keelway, her control wires, fuel and water lines, pumps, and the hundreds of items of equipment needed to operate the ship were installed. The control car and engine gondolas also were nearing completion. The six engines were suspended outside and away from the hull in separate pods. The aft power car and the control car were equipped with handling rails for ground crews, which allowed the aircraft to rest on the ground at these two points. The forward car of ZR-1 was suspended from the hull by struts and cables; subsequent ships had theirs built up against the hull. A sixth engine was located in its own car immediately behind the control car, but this power plant was later removed.

An airship’s control car was the nerve center, or “bridge,” of the ship:

In the control car are located all of the instruments necessary to navigate the aircraft as well as those required to fly it as an airship. In the extreme forward section on the center line is located the rudder control, in front of which will be found the compass. On the port side is located the elevator control mechanism and the instrument board upon which will be found an inclinometer, an altimeter and barometer, a gas-pressure alarm, and a variometer (rate-of-climb meter). Here will also be found the gas and air thermometers or “superheat” meters.

Immediately above this station is located the minor control box . . . [which] contains the necessary pulls for operating the maneuvering [gas release] valves and the various types of water ballast bags and fuel dump valves.

On the starboard side of the ship is located the chart table and the lockers for the navigation equipment. The ship’s clock is located immediately above the table. Overhead will be found the engine telegraphs. . . . The ship’s telephone is located on this side of the car immediately aft of the engine telegraphs.⁶

By mid-June only the power plants remained outstanding. Various hangar tests were conducted, and the aircraft was ready at long last for inflation.

A helium repurification plant had not yet been installed at Lakehurst. Instead, about eighteen thousand cylinders arrived by rail from the plant at Fort Worth and were stacked north of the hangar, near the siding. The first shipment reached the station in early February, each rail car holding about six hundred 140-cubic-foot cylinders. The long-awaited inflation began at 0930, 13 August 1923. Over the next three days thirteen thousand cylinders were manifolded together, bank by bank, and emptied into the inflation line to the hangar, thence into the airship’s gas cells.⁷

Installation of these cells had been an exceedingly delicate operation, due in part to the fragile nature of the cell material and to the inexperience of the erection crew.⁸ Each cell had been carefully removed from its packing, laid out on a ground cloth, and test-inflated with air. Then, folded into accordion pleats, they were bundled and hauled up into the ship above the keel. The cells were unbundled, and overhead lines were secured to handling patches on them. As helium was slowly introduced into the bottom, the cells were floated very carefully into position. Gassing continued until the desired percentage inflation was reached. Purity readings were taken. The ship’s initial inflation was conducted in progressive steps from cell to cell to avoid undue stresses or deformations to the ship’s structure. As total lift increased, the aircraft was painstakingly ballasted to compensate and to keep the ship slightly heavier than air. On 16 August, the inflation of ZR-1 was completed. Each cell had been gassed to 85 percent fullness for a total inflow of 1,783,000 cubic feet of helium. The first ship’s watch was posted.

ZR-1 had been designed for hydrogen, not helium. But the R-38 tragedy in August 1921 had generated concern about the use of hydrogen, with BuAer recommending to Moffett that the new ship be inflated instead with inert helium. One week after the loss of R-38, three blimps were destroyed in a hydrogen fire at the Rockaway Naval Air Station, Long Island, NY. As one result, the department began experimenting with helium in blimp C-7. On 21 February 1922, the Army’s semirigid airship Roma burned in a hydrogen fire that killed thirty-four of the forty-five men on board. This was enough. Official as well as public sentiment to use helium as the lifting gas became overwhelming.

Washington’s decision was hardly an easy one. The gas was frightfully expensive, about $120 per 1,000 cubic feet in 1923. It possessed only 92 percent of the lift of hydrogen and was still in short supply. In March 1922, for example, the entire U.S. supply of helium amounted to about 2,400,000 cubic feet—barely sufficient to inflate ZR-1, let alone maintain a reserve. Substitution of the heavier gas, moreover, reduced the cruising range of ZR-1 by roughly 40 percent—a serious liability for an aircraft being promoted to the fleet as a long-endurance aerial scout.

Four days after her inflation, on 20 August, ZR-1 was officially launched. After sounding general quarters on the power house whistle, and with her full flight crew on board, 278 ground crewmen took their stations along the hull at the handling lines. The suspensions to the overhead were cast off, water ballast was dropped forward, and the ship’s bow rose off the shoring, which then was removed. Ballast was released aft, and the men inside ordered forward along the keel corridor. When the stern was sufficiently light, the deck force at the after power car lifted her free of the shoring aft. At 1434 hours, ZR-1 was floating free.⁹ The 680-foot aircraft was walked to the south side of the big room and placed onto cradles beneath the control car and after power car. The first U.S. rigid airship had been launched.

In the late afternoon of 4 September, with fifteen thousand spectators, dignitaries, reporters, and newsreel people on board the base, ZR-1 was “walked” out for the first time. This demanding operation required 420 sailors, Marines, and station civilian employees. Primitive mechanical equipment assisted the struggling ground crew, as significant improvements in ground handling were five years in the future.

When well clear of the hangar on the West Field, and after being allowed to swing into the wind, the new ship lifted off the field at 1720 with twenty-nine aboard. This local flight was the first ever by a helium-inflated rigid airship. Only four of her engines were used, and these were run at half speed. The airship was landed after fifty-five minutes aloft.

Big-ship operations were almost entirely new to the Navy. Given this dearth of experience, ZR-1 of necessity became a training vehicle for working out practical problems and operating doctrine. A careful familiarization and flight trials program had been recommended prior to the first flight, but this was rather quickly subordinated by BuAer and its preoccupation with public relations. The public was becoming air-minded, a development keenly appreciated by the Navy Department and its young BuAer. Admiral Moffett, its first chief, was keen on publicity. Unfortunately, his penchant would influence operations from the beginning: few opportunities were missed to foster an enthusiasm for naval air power.

The christening ceremony took place on 10 October. Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby, his wife, and a party of dignitaries, including Admiral Moffett, were received on board by the commanding officer with full naval honors. At 1630, Mrs. Denby, as sponsor, christened the new ship USS Shenandoah. The christening party was then taken on board for a one-hour flight along with reporters and newsreel cameramen. Shenandoah now was an operating unit of the Navy. Two days later, the CNO advised all commands that “Shenandoah is added to the Navy list and assigned for special duty to the Naval Air Station, Lakehurst, New Jersey.”¹⁰

It was the exuberant 1920s. Among the many obsessions of American culture, science had quickened its seductive hold. The technology of automobiles, radio, and aeronautics aroused a special interest in the public. In this optimistic atmosphere, ZR-1 quickly became the darling of the American press and public. Publicity flights—“County fair stuff instead of real work”¹¹—to show off the new ship to the Northeast and Midwest tended to dominate Shenandoah’s schedule. Indeed, the airship’s seventh flight (1–3 October) was an ambitious forty-eight-hour, twenty-two-hundred-mile adventure to the St. Louis air races. Regrettably, these “handwaving” flights were well removed from the fleet where, inevitably, the ship and those to follow would have to prove themselves.

Operations involved a number of local flights to train with Lakehurst’s new mooring mast. Construction of a permanent mast had begun late in 1921. An area about 4,000 feet from the hangar’s west doors was cleared, and construction commenced on a 165-foot steel tower to receive and replenish Shenandoah. By September 1922, the installation was in its final stages. The machinery house at the base held the main and auxiliary winches for the mooring lines, along with electric pumps for fuel and for water ballast, a workbench, an office, and an entrance to the elevator to the masthead. Quarters for a “mast watch” were provided for four officers and a dozen enlisted personnel (enlarged in 1925).

USS Shenandoah (ZR-1) is undocked, 4 September 1923. Note the sailors and Marines grouped on the after-car rails and the ship’s eighteen-foot propeller. Lakehurst is miserably located with respect to storm tracks; winds often are cross-hangar. Mechanical gear was a signal advance; until its introduction, ground-handling was primarily via manpower. One repercussion: few flight hours per unit time. U.S. Naval Institute photo archive

This first mast was impressive. The tower was equipped with three platforms, an elevator, communication systems, electric lighting (including floodlights for night operations), and piping for gasoline, oil, helium, and water ballast. A small elevator ran up the middle of the triangular tower to the first platform, 136 feet above the field. From there a ladder reached the operating platform, 12 feet higher. Communication between this level and the machinery house was via electric winch telegraphs, voice tubing, and by telephone. Push-button controls for the pumps were provided. The third platform, at 160 feet, held the mooring equipment together with quick couplings for connection to the airship’s own lines. Access to the airship was by gangway let down from the ship’s nose to the main platform. Surrounding the tower on the ground were equally spaced snatch block anchorages; lines from the auxiliary winches led through these and received the ship’s two yaw lines let down from her bow.

The mast at Lakehurst. Completed in 1922, the 165-foot tower was the first mooring mast in America. Unwieldy on the ground, a rigid airship was impracticable without investments in masts and ground-handling equipment. Operationally, independence from sheds was crucial for maximum flight hours and thus experience. A further necessity were officers proficient in meteorology. C. E. Rosendahl Collection, HOAC/University of Texas

Interior of the machinery house beneath the high mast. The winch for the mooring cable is at center. Here also were electric pumps for fuel and for water ballast, a workbench and office, entrance to the elevator, and quarters for the mast watch. Rear Adm. C. M. Bolster, USN (Ret.)

The virtue of a mast was the operational flexibility it afforded in terms of independence from hangars. A returning airship could postpone docking, for example, if conditions on the field were unfavorable for the maneuver. Shenandoah used the mast for the first time on 16 November 1923, after several failed attempts to moor. The entire crew was learning by trial and error. Two moors were made in December and another two in January, when extended mooring-out trials began. These tests were intended to simulate conditions that the ship and crew would experience during the proposed, and much-discussed, flight to the Arctic via the West Coast.

The polar expedition was symptomatic of BuAer’s posture relative to the large airship. Admiral Moffett had predicted an Arctic flight in a press conference following the ship’s maiden flight. Indeed, earlier that year the New York Times had reported that this new, untried machine would be sent over the principal cities of America and around the world, as well as visit both poles!¹² These projections begged reality. The substitution of helium had greatly reduced the airship’s cruising range. Further, the ship’s complement were learning as they flew; the Navy had but one large LTA base and, by 1924, was still groping relative to the use of mooring masts. Planning for a polar expedition would be halted by President Calvin Coolidge in mid-February. Nonetheless, hostage to the airship’s own propaganda and obsessed with public acceptance, Moffett and the Navy brass continued to expect far too much from their large airships and far too soon.

ZR-1 (left) berthed in Hangar No. 1, the nonrigid airship J-1 opposite. Clements/U.S. Naval Institute photo archive

J-1 is undocked as Shenandoah vanes to the mast; at left, a kite balloon sways on its cable. Helium-inflated J-1 logged its first trial on 16 May 1924. A blimp’s service life was from three to five years, determined by the rubberized fabric envelope. Its performance unsatisfactory and to conserve helium, J-1 was soon deflated and surveyed. Clements/R. G. Mayer collection courtesy Ian Ross

Helium Plant under construction. Authorized in March 1923, a satisfactory trial run was logged in April 1924 with operating capacity at 20,000 cubic feet per hour. The first such installation, Lakehurst’s, was the basic design of government-owned and -operated liquefaction-type plants built by the Bureau of Mines. Today, helium is indispensable to industry and for national defense. Rear Adm. C. M. Bolster, USN (Ret.)

Extended mast trials began in preparation for the Arctic hop, during which masts would be the only “bases” available to Shenandoah. Starting on the evening of 12 January, the ship carried out all operations from the mast. To test the ship in bad weather, Commander McCrary intended to keep her at the masthead for a week with a skeleton crew aboard, ready to take to the air if conditions demanded.

On the fourteenth, aerology issued an advisory of gale force winds for the sixteenth and seventeenth. Inasmuch as winds of sixty miles per hour were wanted for the test, it was decided to leave the ship masted. The sky clouded over as predicted on the sixteenth; the wind freshened and, by 1500, the airship was rolling slightly but continuously. At 1600, the watch changed amid driving rain and gusts up to sixty-three miles per hour. McCrary disembarked at 1700 for his quarters but was called back by Heinen, who had decided to unmoor and ride out the storm aloft. At 1844 a gust of seventy-eight miles per hour struck on the starboard bow, destroying the upper fin and rolling the hull severely. This twisting stress wrenched the nose structure free. The framework forward was destroyed, deflating the two forward gas cells.

High-pressure helium storage, NAS Lakehurst. These forged-steel cylinders held about 1 million cubic feet of the nonflammable gas. Before 1922 all Navy airships had been hydrogen inflated. The program stimulated interest in the inert—but expensive—lifting gas and was instrumental in developing helium as a national resource. In the meantime, cost bedeviled operations and helped frustrate commercial prospects. The kite balloon hangar is at left, Hangar No. 1 at right. Rear Adm. C. M. Bolster, USN (Ret.)

Drafting room, Hangar No. 1. The blueprint room with the engineering drawings for ZR-1 is at the rear; file cabinets with day-to-day paperwork are just out of view. Civilian employees were integral to station functions from the earliest years, including lending a hand for an undocking or docking in the big room, adjacent. M. J. Cranme

The aircraft began to fall. In the control car, the watch saw the masthead lights disappearing upward—and knew instantly that ZR-1 had broken free. Nearby, in the bachelor officers quarters, a bridge game was abruptly halted:

Shenandoah was gone—she was no longer riding at the mast. We all went dashing over to the mast through the wind and rain, and there was the nose structure of the ship still hanging on the mast along with some heavy mooring gear from the ship [mooring winches and cable] which had fallen to the ground. It was obvious that the gas cell in the bow had been torn and deflated as the ship broke away.¹³

ZR-1 secured to the high mast. Standing, left to right, Lt. Cdr. Zachary Lansdowne, CO, USS Shenandoah; Rear Adm. William A. Moffett, chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics; Lt. Cdr. M. R. Pierce; Lt. Cdr. J. M. Deem; and Col. C. G. Hal, U.S. Army. Deem and Pierce were graduates of LTA Class I (1923–24). Lansdowne would lose his life in Shenandoah, Moffett in Akron (ZRS-4). ZR-1 absorbed the energies of all personnel. Army Air Service officers were ordered to Lakehurst for “observation and instruction” on ZR-1, hence the Army presence. Mrs. F. J. Tobin

Thus began, according to Aviation magazine, “one of the most thrilling chapters in the history of air navigation.”¹⁴ Instinctively, hands had reached for the ballast toggles, and forty-two hundred pounds of water were dropped. Men were ordered aft. Shenandoah drove sternfirst across the field, nose down. The ship barely cleared the trees bordering the field, and the wild ride, her twentieth sortie, was on. The mechanics on watch in the power cars were signaled via telegraph; instantly, the engines barked to life in response. Fortunately, the ship’s telegraph and control cables were intact. Slowly the bridge gained the upper hand. Forward, riggers struggled frantically to seal the open end, to prevent the in-rush of air from destroying cell after cell like a row of dominoes. Weights had to be shifted, including fuel, to restore the crippled craft to an even keel.¹⁵

The engines brought a measure of control, and additional ballast (fuel tanks, tools, and spare parts) were dropped overboard to restore a measure of trim. The ship was allowed to run before the storm to the northwest. Meanwhile, Lakehurst waited without word from ZR-1. (Her radio had been dismantled.) The radioman worked feverishly to reassemble the wet and scattered pieces of his precious set. Finally, at 2100, Shenandoah’s first message was broadcast: “All O.K. Will ride out storm. Think we are over New Brunswick. Holding our own. Verify position and send us weather information.—Pierce.”¹⁶

A reply advised that ZR-1 was in fact over Newark, fifty miles north of Lakehurst, and almost directly over radio station WOR, located on the top floor of the Bamberger Building, downtown. Commercial stations ceased broadcasting as WOR announcer Jack Poppele “talked” with the stricken aircraft and relayed her reports to Lakehurst until 2200, when direct radio contact was established. The wind shifted and began to abate. The decision was made to proceed to Lakehurst, although the ship could not be headed directly into the wind. Thanks to the damaged fin, moreover, steering remained difficult. The Shenandoah was slowly nursed back to base. Finally, out of the gloom, the wounded ship reached a jittery station and “like a crippled bird” landed at 0330 into the tired hands of four hundred ground crewmen.¹⁷

It had been a wild night. The gale was one of the worst January storms in fifty years, causing considerable property damage. At Lakehurst, the high winds blew down the aerological instrument shelter and blew in some of the observatory’s windows.

The breakaway flight was the stuff of high drama, and both ship and crew had been worthy of the trial. The press and public were electrified. The Secretary of the Navy congratulated the flight crew. The president also telegrammed his congratulations for their courage and skill. The Board of Investigation found no blame or censure for anyone connected with the accident. It recommended that the mooring device be redesigned to give way before the airship itself could sustain damage. At the department, favorable publicity further encouraged Admiral Moffett as to the proposed Arctic flight, scheduled for June. Others were far less certain as to the wisdom of the expedition. There was considerable criticism in Congress relative to the proposal, for example, and serious doubts were expressed in certain aeronautical circles as well.

ZR-1 bow atop the high mast, 16 January 1924. During mooring trials a severe side gust had initiated a rolling, twisting motion that tore the bow structure free. The ship was adrift with a small crew aboard. The run downwind and return was true drama. Lakehurst’s individual commands tended to be hotbeds of personal politics. The breakaway highlighted animosities, realizing a change of command for both ship and station. NARA

It had been planned to give Shenandoah a complete overhaul and incorporate changes before the Arctic attempt. These preparations were now combined with the necessary repairs. Extensive reconstruction and strengthening was clearly required, and specific improvements were made, notably the removal of the sixth engine and reconstruction of this space as a radio compartment and installation of a water recovery apparatus on the after power car.¹⁸ Shenandoah therefore was suspended from the hangar overhead and shored from below and remained so for the next three months. Compounding the delay and expense, one hundred thousand cubic feet of helium had been lost in the accident, further aggravating the shortage.

The breakaway flight had other more far-reaching consequences. The incident highlighted festering personal rivalries in the chain of command prevailing in Lakehurst. A sweeping change was announced, characterized by Moffett as in the best interests of the Navy. Aviation magazine, for one, seemed to approve Washington’s action.

The rumblings and rumors of dissatisfaction and unharmonious conditions at Lakehurst in connection with the Shenandoah have at last had the inevitable result of a general shifting of officers. No one could have visited Lakehurst for the last few months without sensing a condition that was wrong. It was even freely discussed by the enlisted personnel.¹⁹

McCrary was relieved of duty as CO of both Shenandoah and the naval air station. Cdr. Jacob H. Klein, USN, station executive officer (XO), was relieved of all duties aboard Shenandoah and assumed command of the base. Weyerbacher was detached from all duties at Lakehurst and with ZR-1; he reported for duty at NAS Pensacola for HTA flight training despite his personal protest to the department.

Shenandoah’s new commanding officer was an inspired choice, a man fully prepared for command of the Navy’s only large airship: Lt. Cdr. Zachary Lansdowne. Lansdowne held more rigid airship flight time than any other officer in the Navy. A 1909 graduate of the Naval Academy, he had served in England as a naval aviator during the war and was an observer on R-34 during the westward leg of her transatlantic crossing to America in 1919. The lieutenant commander had recently returned from Germany, where Luftschiffbau Zeppelin (Zeppelin Company) was building the ZR-3 as compensation to the Americans. In short, the thirty-six-year-old officer was uniquely qualified to command Shenandoah.

Events would prove his officer-like qualities, his skill as a ship handler, and his ability to command the loyalty of his men. Above all, he saw the need to operate the Shenandoah with the fleet to demonstrate her naval capabilities, and while always deferential to Moffett, he attempted to oppose the latter’s publicity mania through channels.²⁰

Lakehurst was intended to be the center for LTA aeronautics in the United States. All Navy LTA at NAS Hampton Roads, for example (homeport for C-7), the first airship of any type to fly with helium, and for the new J-1, was halted in spring 1924. C-7 was placed in storage and J-1 packed for shipment to Lakehurst. The 174,880-cubic-foot nonrigid was inflated in Hangar No. 1 on 2 May; rigging the ship required another week. On 10 May, J-1 was commissioned into the U.S. Navy. At that moment, J-1 was the only blimp in operational inventory, and the J-type would prove highly serviceable, remaining operational until 1940. At 0925, 16 May 1924, J-1 took off with three aboard, Lt. C. H. Havill, USN, commanding. This was the inaugural flight of a nonrigid airship at Lakehurst. Four days later, Lansdowne logged a one-hour sortie in the ship; that same month, Rosendahl’s flight log recorded his first flight aboard a nonrigid, on J-1.

Crew of the Shenandoah (ZR-1), April 1924. The full complement comprised fifty-four men, forty of whom flew with the ship. Short on operating experience, the Navy of necessity flew ZR-1 as a training platform for working out practical problems and doctrine. Lt. Cdr. L. E. Schellberg, USN (Ret.)

The nonrigid type was intended primarily for training. But during the last two weeks of May 1924, J-1 was exploited to promote an upcoming “air circus” to be held the weekend of 30 May. Planning for this gala event, the first of its kind at Lakehurst, had begun in March. In all, J-1 logged five local flights advertising this naval air demonstration. During some of these, flights programs were dropped over the towns en route. This use of the small ship was wonderful publicity and presaged the public relations activities of the Goodyear fleet inaugurated a few years later.²¹

Virtually all station hands became involved. The final program included a wide variety of events involving airplanes as well as airships. The Navy’s Lt. Alford J. “AI” Williams, a crack pilot and a Moffett favorite, was included, and he would figure prominently in the final program. Exhibits were selected for the hangar spaces, security beefed up, Navy bands engaged, and arrangements prepared for the press.

On Friday, 30 May, most of the participating airplanes arrived. And at 2040 hours, Shenandoah was weighed off in the hangar. This consisted of determining the ship’s static condition and discharging ballast fore-and-aft to being her slightly “heavy” and in trim for walk out. (On takeoff, her weight would be adjusted literally to zero.) ZR-1 was walked through the west doors five minutes later. Ground crews struggled with ZR-1 across the sandy field. It was a windy day, so the ship was not leeward of the high mast until 2140. The main cable from the masthead was coupled to Shenandoah’s bow line; the ship was again weighed off slightly light and in even trim, and she rose statically out of the hands of the ground crew. Slowly, the main winch hauled her in to the mooring swivel at the masthead. Finally, at 2235, the airship’s mooring cone was inserted into the revolving cup and locked into place. The mast watch was set. Shenandoah would remain at the mast until the following afternoon, swinging silently to the wind like a ship at anchor.

Saturday, 31 May, dawned clear and nearly perfect, except for a stiff west wind that persisted throughout the day and forced cancellation of several events. Reveille was sounded an hour early, and station personnel began to deploy to their duty posts for a very busy day.

Exhibits and program for Lakehurst’s exciting naval air demonstration, 31 May 1924. By 0930, more than 25,000 spectators were estimated to have arrived on board, awaiting opening events. A crush of Lakehurst-bound cars and excursion trains would be repeated later for Graf Zeppelin and Hindenburg.

Cars began to arrive early. The first of eight excursion trains also arrived. Soon, seemingly endless lines of automobiles were snaking from the main gate through the town and throughout the general area. The roads to the village were promptly jammed. This crush of Lakehurst-bound visitors was to be repeated for the arrival from Germany of ZR-3 that fall and later for visits by Graf Zeppelin and Hindenburg. But this spring day in 1924 was the pacemaker.

By 0930, perhaps twenty-five thousand spectators were on hand, awaiting opening events. The doors to Hangar No. 1 had been rolled back, and visitors milled about the huge berthing space or pondered the exhibits in the adjoining shops. One of Shenandoah’s Packard engines was on display, as were photographs, a display on gas cells, and samples of airship girder. Visitors were allowed to handle these, and most were surprised to find that a thirty-foot section of duralumin could be lifted with the little finger. J-1 was docked near the west end of the big room, and Williams’s biplane was nearby. Outside, others wandered to the Aerological Building and the exhibits there or began claiming good seats along the edge of the field. Airplanes were lined up near the hangar and Shenandoah presided over this busy scene, swinging on the mast at the end of the field.

The show got under way about 1030 when dummies on parachutes were dropped from the kite balloon, which was riding on its cable about one thousand feet above the crowds. Marine Corps planes made a simulated attack against a “machine gun nest” and, later, flew in formation across the field. J-1 was undocked through the west doors and, once aloft, cruised in the vicinity of the station until late afternoon. One of Lakehurst’s 35,000-cubic-foot free balloons, with a crew of three, one of whom, dressed as a woman, dashed from the crowd and scrambled aboard, was released at 1140. It drifted away rapidly to the northeast with J-1 following.

The noontime event, however, proved to be “the biggest thrill of the day.” The hangar had been cleared except for Williams’s plane, a Vought VE-7. At 1155, the biplane was taxied outside, and Williams took off. He circled south and approached from the east, but swerved away. On his second approach, at almost exactly noon, the biplane dove straight for the hangar and roared into the east end of the cavernous room. Keeping about fifty feet above the deck and midway between the walls, the fighter shot through the hangar and zoomed out the west end before startled and delighted onlookers. The stunt was a sensation. Officially, the Navy could hardly condone this kind of flying by its aviators, so the incident was disingenuously recorded in the station log: “1155 Lt. Williams took off and did special stunts. 1205 Lt. Williams landed.”²²

Airplanes occupied a busy program during the early afternoon. Some visitors began stringing homeward; however, many more waited for Shenandoah’s departure for a short flight. The public had come to see the great airship fly. At about 1450, J-1 landed; it was time for the announcement of the lucky numbers for rides. Ten thousand miniatures of ZR-1 had been sold—and three winners were drawn from these. One man responded for an airplane ride, but no one claimed their ride in either J-1 or the kite balloon. For the ride of the day, however, two civilians reported to the mast. These uniquely fortunate individuals were escorted up to the main platform, where they waited for permission from the control car to come aboard. The two were finally escorted through the bow hatch and welcomed aboard. Another passenger was already inside. Exercising his prerogative as commanding officer, Lansdowne had invited his eight-year-old son for a ride.

When all hands were at their landing stations, the mast crew was notified to stand by to weigh off. The airship was brought into the wind using her rudders and into horizontal trim with her elevators. Controls in neutral, Shenandoah was carefully weighed off, the officers noting any rise or fall of the stern. Ballast (water, fuel, and men) was shifted as needed; at 1500, ZR-1 was cast off a trifle light by the bow. She was allowed to free-balloon to a safe height above the mast, where, finally, her Packard engines barked to life. While the milling thousands gapped in excitement, Shenandoah moved off to the east on her twenty-fourth flight.

Memorial Day highlight: Lt. Alford “Al” Williams, USN, zoomed through the hangar. His VE-7 (left) has just exited its west end and is about to pull up before startled spectators. Officially, the Navy Department could hardly condone the stunt by one of its own, so it was disingenuously recorded in the air station log. H. A. Seiffert

Demonstration Day had been an immense success; the Navy had every reason to be pleased. To the departing visitor that afternoon, Shenandoah and the airships in prospect were formidable vehicles of the air prepared to join the fleet. But in 1924 the large airship was less than this. Neither Shenandoah nor the soon-to-be-delivered ZR-3 represented a fleet-type aircraft: each was too small in cubic volume for extended operations at sea. Short on operating experience, the Navy, of necessity, would use both for training ships and to develop the state of the art. In less than twelve years, and for a variety of reasons—technological, military, and political—the rigid airship would fail to prove its value in naval warfare.

But the naval aviators of 1924 were not clairvoyants. At 1835, Shenandoah landed on the field east of the hangar. ZR-1 was walked inside forty-five minutes later and, at 2000, secured in the north berth. As the men stowed their gear and secured the naval air station on this exciting Lakehurst evening, the prospects for the airship could not have seemed brighter.

Lansdowne had strong views as to the utility of airships in the U.S. Navy. He now proceeded to deploy his ship at sea, with the fleet, where she had always been intended to operate. Politics notwithstanding, Lansdowne always enjoyed Washington’s utmost confidence; no one criticized his handling of Shenandoah. The successes achieved with the airship in 1924–25 can be credited largely to Lansdowne and his tragically short command.

In this period, Shenandoah participated in one exercise with the Scouting Force and in two minor operations with the battleship Texas. Her performance as an aerial scout was tested in practice, and halting progress would be made. As one element of these earliest operations, mooring tests were conducted with the fleet airship tender Patoka, a converted oiler and the only Navy vessel ever to serve this function. The 16,800-ton ship had been launched in 1919; in 1924, Patoka was refitted as an aircraft tender (AV). On the afterdeck, a steel tower was erected, which gave a height of 141 feet from mooring cone to waterline. The mooring mechanism was a reproduction of that at Lakehurst, with the addition of two eighty-foot booms for yaw lines. Main and yaw winches, tanks for aviation fuel and helium, workshops and accommodations for off-watch LTA personnel were included in the refit. Patoka, renumbered AV-6, was recommissioned on 1 July 1924. Less than two weeks later, she sailed for Newport to join the Scouting Force and Shenandoah for mooring experiments. If successful, the tender would provide a floating base for ZRs, making Shenandoah and her successors available on a protracted basis with the surface fleet.

Helium conservation continued to hamper operations and remained a regrettable preoccupation with Lansdowne. The inaugural operation with Patoka provides an example. Scheduled to depart for Rhode Island on 6 August, Shenandoah was not cast off for two days due to uncertain weather. Her skipper was taking no chances: the station’s entire supply of helium was in the ship, and none was available on Patoka. Therefore, valving en route or during mooring had to be avoided if sufficient fuel was to be carried. These difficulties might not set well with fleet commanders, but Lansdowne’s policy in this critical period was necessarily cautious.

On 8 August, shortly after midnight, Shenandoah was undocked and moored out to await the sunrise and its warming effect on the gas cells. With each degree difference between the ship’s helium and the surrounding air (“superheat”), Shenandoah could lift another three hundred pounds. Lansdowne cast off from the mast at 0921. The strategy “to gain superheat” became standard operating procedure. Similarly, landings were logged at night as much as possible, when the lifting gas was relatively cool and the airship correspondingly heavy. Upon arrival off Rhode Island, a mooring to the floating mast was attempted for the first time. (Rosendahl had been sent ahead as mooring officer to train the tender’s line handlers and assist the mooring.) This first trial was successful with only minor problems noted. As at Lakehurst, the airship had to be “flown” while at the masthead. But experience showed that the airship could be more readily trimmed when secured to Patoka than on the field at Lakehurst, due to the absence of thermals generated by sandy, loamy soil of the landing field and mast environ. This first experience with the tender was carefully analyzed to guide decision-making. Adjustments in procedure and equipment were prescribed and then applied operationally with little change until the final moor to Patoka by the USS Akron (ZRS-4) in 1932.

A transcontinental round-trip using masts erected for the polar trip had been in planning as early as the spring of 1923. By July 1924, the bureau had outlined an itinerary for an October flight to the West Coast. This was then expanded by the Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet (CinCUS), to include a 3½-month operation out of Pearl Harbor, using an expeditionary, or “stick,” mast. This would allow Shenandoah to participate in a strategic search problem with the battle fleet during February–March 1925. Regrettably but necessarily, this was more than both Lansdowne and Moffett could endorse. Strategic searches over trackless ocean were ideal deployments for the type; indeed, too few such exercises were conducted before the rigid airship was finally rejected as an adjunct for the fleet. But operating for more than six months six thousand miles from homeport with neither hangar nor support facilities was unrealistic for a prototype aircraft and its inexperienced crew. Shenandoah’s limited radius of operation, the chronic shortage of helium, and the experimental nature of her newly installed water recovery apparatus (among other factors) argued against this ambitious proposal. Lansdowne presented his case to Moffett; the admiral in turn forwarded his commander’s comments up the chain of command. The CNO agreed to defer decisions regarding future deployment until all experimental work with the ship was completed.

Preparations for a transcontinental flight to the West Coast proceeded, including a thorough overhaul for ZR-1. The proposed itinerary and logistics were without precedent in terms of distance and duration—and would prove a strenuous test of both ship and crew. Mooring masts were available only at Fort Worth, near the Navy’s helium-production plant, at San Diego, and at Camp Lewis, in the Pacific Northwest in Washington. On 25 September the CNO issued the appropriate orders. Lansdowne was to proceed with his command on or about 3 October to San Diego via Fort Worth and, at his discretion, on to Seattle.

At 1000, 7 October 1924, Shenandoah cast off the high mast, destination Fort Worth. Eleven officers and twenty-seven crewmen were on board, including two passengers. The payload included 19,488 pounds of fuel for the five engines, 2,500 pounds of water ballast, and 895 pounds of oil. ZR-1 would be away from homeport for twenty days, an experience that only the flight crew could appreciate. Even by 1924 military standards, the ship’s amenities were few. The concern for weight obviated all but the most essential personal articles for both crew and passengers: Admiral Moffett and a newsman. While half the flight crew held the watch, the off-watch ate or slept in sleeping bags. (The tiny twelve-foot-square crew’s quarters were identical for both officers and enlisted men.) Rations consisted of sandwiches, hot coffee, and soup and beans heated on a two-burner gasoline stove in a crude galley between the navigation bridge and radio room. Ship’s Cook J. J. Hahn, the only flying cook in the Navy, served as combination cook and mess boy, conveying countless meals forward to the bridge and up the ladder for those holding station along the keelway.

Life within the hull of a rigid airship was along the narrow keel corridor, or “catwalk.” On Shenandoah, this triangular tunnel extended from nose to tail cone. Spaced along this passageway were aluminum tanks for fuel and lubricating oil, water ballast bags, food lockers, head, bunks, and off-duty quarters. Four lateral gangways led to the wing car ladders; a trapdoor granted access to the ladder of the centerline engine car aft at frame 60.²³ Only inches below the walkway, the ship’s outer cover provided a false sense of security as the men shuttled about their various duties. The fuel and water distribution lines ran above the keelway. Here also the bulging gas cells pressed against the wire bracing and cell netting. The bottom fabric was clear-doped near the keel, allowing in light. There were few lights on board. At night, each crewman carried his own flashlight as he moved about the intricate interior spaces inspecting cells, measuring fuel, or changing watch.

The flight to the mast at Fort Worth proved uneventful, but it was the next leg, through the mountains of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, that concerned the ship’s officers. Shenandoah was designed for low-altitude operations at sea; the relatively turbulent conditions over a continental land mass were a wholly novel and dangerous prospect. Clearing the Continental Divide, moreover, would require flying over “pressure height,” the altitude at which the gas cells are 100 percent full. Above this altitude, helium would be lost through the automatic valves at the base of each cell. (The manual valves were located atop each gas cell.) Thus, to conserve gas, the airship would navigate passage through the mountain passes rather than over them.

West of Fort Worth the ship followed the “iron compass” of the Texas and Pacific rail line, which led ever higher into the mountains. The ground continued to rise beneath until Shenandoah reached an altitude of sixty-six hundred feet east of El Paso. There was at least one close call, and more than forty thousand cubic feet of helium was lost through the valves before the coast was reached in the late hours of 10 October. Shenandoah then cruised south to the naval air station at North Island, San Diego, where a portable stick mast had been erected to receive her. Nearly forty hours after leaving Fort Worth, a very tired flight crew reached the mast and secured at 0100 on the eleventh.

USS Shenandoah off San Diego, 16 October 1924. Her transcontinental round-trip—Lansdowne in command—was unprecedented in terms of distance and duration, thus underscoring the commercial potential of large airships. ZR-1 was away from homeport for twelve days, logging 235 flight hours, her crew more than glad to be back. In mid-November ZR-1 was placed out of commission for overhaul, her helium transferred to ZR-3. In 1925 Shenandoah’s operations with fleet units would prove promising if inconclusive. USN

Shenandoah spent the next eleven days on the West Coast, including a flight to Seattle. On the twenty-second, ZR-1 cast off the mast for return to Lakehurst via Fort Worth. The eastbound leg proved more demanding than the outbound leg because the ship was fully fueled, and the western mountains were immediately ahead. Shenandoah was forced as high as seventy-three hundred feet over New Mexico and, despite release of both fuel and ballast, obliged to fly as much as thirteen degrees up by the bow due to static heaviness. Flying the ship heavy had become a standard but questionable practice in order to avoid dropping ballast and thus conserve precious helium. Aerodynamically speaking, severe hull-bending moments resulted, the structural effects of which remained as yet largely unknown Shenandoah reached the mast at Fort Worth on the twenty-fourth and, finally, was over homeport in the darkness of the twenty-fifth. The return from California had required six days, with nearly 121 hours in the air. Total flight time for the continental round-trip: 235 hours. A long and sometimes harrowing journey stood logged, the ship’s crew more than glad to be back.

The transcontinental flight was front-page news for nearly three weeks. The SecNav commended Lansdowne for successfully commanding this protracted aerial expedition, and, not least, its obvious implications for the future of military and commercial airships. The Germans too were impressed by the American commitment to lighter-than-air progress, and their congratulations were extended in person at Lakehurst by the delivery crew of LZ-126 (ZR-3)—having arrived via Zeppelin from Germany ten days earlier. The naval air station was alive with optimism, pride, and satisfaction. The United States now possessed two great dirigibles. A new era of intercontinental, transoceanic air transportation seemed inevitable.

Unfortunately for the immediate future, the West Coast flight had expended 640,000 cubic feet of helium—about 17 percent of the Navy’s fiscal year’s allotment from Fort Worth. The plant’s output could not possibly satisfy the operational demands of ZR-1 and ZR-3 concurrently. And so, in her moment of triumph, Shenandoah was deflated for an extended overhaul and repair while her helium was donated to ZR-3. It was expected that sufficient helium would be accumulated by March 1925 to operate both ZRs, but demand was nearly equal to the available supply. The Navy therefore had no choice but to extend the grounding of ZR-1 nearly eight months. Operations by ZR-3, christened Los Angeles on 25 November 1924, would dominate air station operations to June 1925.

Zeppelin in sight! The “reparations airship” flies over the Lakehurst station, 15 October 1924. Touchdown concluded an 82.5-hour transatlantic leap, the fourth aircraft to cross. At that moment, Shenandoah was riding to an expeditionary mast at North Island. The air station’s helium plant and power house are at the upper right. NARA

ZR-1, Shenandoah (left) and ZR-3, Los Angeles, early 1925. Deflated, ZR-1 is supported about equally between cable suspensions to the overhead and cradles under all the cars together with shores. Short of funds, the LTA program could not obtain helium sufficient to operate both ZRs concurrently. Operations were therefore alternated, one ZR undergoing extended overhaul and repair while the other flew for several months. Shenandoah’s helium was lost with her, grounding Los Angeles for seven months. Neither represented a fleet-type ZR. Their volume was too small to permit extended at-sea operations. Clements courtesy D. H. Robinson

During this enforced layover, Lansdowne considered a number of improvements to his command to save weight and to increase the range and speed of Shenandoah. The most significant (and controversial) was a radical alteration of the ship’s valving system. Shenandoah was equipped with eighteen automatic valves at the base of her gas cells, plus sixteen maneuvering valves at their tops—the latter operated by wires from the bridge. No valve was gastight: air through the automatics decreased purity; the maneuvering valves allowed helium (hence lift) to escape to the atmosphere. Helium conservation had become something of an obsession with Lansdowne. He had already removed eight of the maneuvering valves and had instituted the use of gastight “jam pot” covers over the automatics. At first, these were used only in the hangar; soon, however, the ship was flying with them. To avoid dangerous overpressure in the cells, these were removed by the riggers if the airship approached near to pressure height. Now Lansdowne insisted on removing ten of the automatics and the gas trunks serving them as well. An estimated four hundred pounds was saved plus a slight increase in gas volume gained by elimination of the trunks. BuAer approved this change with great reluctance. With only eight automatic valves, twelve of the gas cells could relieve overpressure only through the fabric inflation manifold that interconnected all the cells. So outfitted, the airship could rise over pressure height only at an estimated four hundred feet per minute with reasonable safety. Lansdowne was warned of this repeatedly while the change was being executed. When Shenandoah experienced an unprecedented and uncontrollable rise on her final, fatal flight in 1925, heated debate ensued: Had this alternation in fact caused the ship’s structure to fail?

Requests for publicity cruises had not diminished. Politicos from the Midwest, among others, were demanding an appearance by the Navy’s airships over their cities and towns. Los Angeles obliged locally, flying to Annapolis on 2 June 1925, where she moored to Patoka, swinging to anchor in the Chesapeake. But “L.A.” suffered engine failure on a flight to Minneapolis and aborted on 7 June. Lansdowne therefore was ordered to reinflate his command; Los Angeles would undergo overhaul, with special attention to her engines and cells. The lieutenant commander protested (as was his right), citing hot weather and its pernicious effects on cruising radius and, as well, the prevalence of Midwestern thunderstorms during the spring and summer. The Navy Department was far from sympathetic; still, the Midwest operation was postponed to September.

Shenandoah was reinflated (with Los Angeles’s helium) by late June. Operations during July and August included experiments with new equipment as well as purely naval missions with units of the fleet. A number of tactical search problems were conducted with the battleship Texas of the Scouting Force, with uneven results. These were, literally, the fleet’s first such exercises with a U.S. rigid airship. Antiaircraft gunnery practice with Shenandoah towing a target sleeve was logged, refueling at sea assessed, towing exercises made with Patoka, and tests of a sea anchor conducted. The concept of airplane hook-on operations was advanced at this time. While Shenandoah never carried an airplane, hook-on tests were begun using Los Angeles as a “carrier.” These experiments were to reach a high state of refinement with Akron and Macon as lighter-than-air “carriers.”

There remained the Midwest flight, now scheduled for the first week in September. Shenandoah’s route and times were advertised in advance (to Lansdowne’s annoyance). At 1452, 2 September 1925, Shenandoah cast off the high mast. On board were forty-one crewmen and two passengers. The first leg would take her to the Army’s airship base at Scott Field, near St. Louis, thence indirectly to Minneapolis and to the new Henry Ford mooring mast erected at Detroit. The Alleghenies were logged shortly after midnight.

From Wheeling the course was set for Zanesville. Over Ohio the ship made very little ground speed, and a severe electrical display was evident to the north and east. Different headings, altitudes, and engine speeds were tried with little success. Lt. Cdr. Charles Rosendahl, navigator, relieved Lt. Cdr. Lewis Hancock Jr., the ship’s executive officer, at 0400. About twenty minutes later “during my drift observations out the window, there appeared on the starboard bow a thin dark streaky cloud just apparent in the dull moonlight. . . . Almost immediately the Captain came over to view this formation that was either coming towards us or building up rapidly. About this same instant, Chief Rigger [E. P.] Allen at the elevators reported the ship rising. He was told to check her. This he could not do.”²⁴

Utterly without warning, Shenandoah had entered an area of extreme atmospheric instability, with unprecedented vertical currents of air. The elevators were ordered hard down and the engines set to full power. Nonetheless, the ship was carried upward, nose down, to thirty-one hundred feet. Two engines overheated and failed. The air became turbulent, causing the ship to pitch and roll. A second, more severe rise began, and the helpless ship was carried rapidly upward—later calculations showed an upward current of twenty-one hundred feet per minute—through pressure height to six thousand feet despite use of the maneuvering valves.

Up in the keel passageway, the off-watch section of the crew asleep in their bunks needed no general alarm to arouse them. Trained instinct plainly told them the unusual motion of the ship meant we were in difficulty. . . . They slipped into their clothes and began to help their shipmates on watch. The clanging of engine telegraphs told the engineers more speed was wanted. “Anti-knock dope” had to be injected into the fuel for maximum engine speeds at that altitude. . . . The deck force, patrolling throughout the keel, watched that the control wires did not jam; they rushed to each gas cell valve to see that it was operating. Jackknife in one hand, they felt the bulging cells with the other, ready to slash the fabric . . . should it exceed what their trained touch told them was safe. Keel officers wended their way from stem to stern directing and inspecting.²⁵

It was clear that the ship was in grave peril. A blast of cold air through the hatches indicated that Shenandoah had reached a cold air mass that was overrunning the warmer air below. Shenandoah started down. The fall was rapid despite the release of nearly seven thousand pounds of water. At three thousand feet the ship met another ascending air current. Word was sent to the keel watch to stand by to slip fuel tanks—the only way to save the ship in another descent. Rosendahl was asked to go up into the keel to check if the men were ready to drop fuel. As he stepped onto the ladder a violent gust struck the underside of the bow, forcing the ship to assume an upward angle “greater than any I had ever experienced in an airship.” The structure could withstand no more. Struts began to snap, the hull breaking in two at frame 125, opening up at the bottom. Four men were on the keel where the break occurred; three were thrown free. The airship had begun to break up. The two halves of the hull remained together via the massive control cables to the ship’s rudders and elevators, but these were then carried away, allowing the control car and six crewmen to fall free. Standing on the keel facing aft, Rosendahl had the awful vision of the hull’s larger after portion floating away, and down, from the bow section. The aft section descended rapidly, but a further break occurred at frame 110, hurling two engine cars and their mechanics to their deaths. The ship’s tail section landed not far from the twisted wreckage of the control car and the dead. The 210-foot bow part, free of the control car, rose to perhaps 10,000 feet. Rosendahl found he was not alone. He and six shipmates assessed their situation, deciding to free balloon the derelict nose section to a “landing.” Gradually, they valved their piece down. The trail ropes finally snagged on a hill near Sharon, Ohio, concluding a harrowing hour aloft in their section of the hull. Thanks in large measure to helium, twenty-nine of the forty-three aboard Shenandoah had survived.

The Shenandoah tragedy was without precedent in the United States, certainly the most spectacular aviation accident to that date. Newspapers screamed the headlines. Secretary of the Navy Curtis D. Wilber asserted that “no immediate change” in naval policy with respect to large airships would be made as a result of the crash. Clearly, however, testing the military value of Shenandoah and later ships stood compromised.

The press exploded with criticism of the Navy Department and BuAer. Brig. Gen. William “Billy” Mitchell leveled charges of negligence at the War and Navy Departments. Lansdowne’s widow, Betsy, was quoted (unfairly) as charging that her husband had been sent to his death on a publicity stunt for the Navy. Charges, denials, criticism, and rebuttals filled the newspapers—hardly the publicity Moffett had intended. The court of inquiry was a thorough if sometimes acrimonious affair. Its report was submitted on 24 December 1925. The court found that “the final destruction of the ship was due primarily to large, unbalanced, external, aerodynamic forces arising from high velocity air currents. Whether the ship, if entirely intact and undamaged, would have broken under the forces existing, or whether prior minor damage due to gas pressure was a determining factor in the final breakup are matters which this Court is unable to determine.”²⁶

A modification of Zeppelin design-engineering, ZR-1 was obsolete before commissioning. The ship’s breakup over Ohio underscored the need for greater hull strength to meet U.S. weather and rough ship handling compared to German practice. Following closely upon the loss of ZR-2, the Shenandoah disaster led to heated criticism of the program. U.S. Naval Institute photo archive

No negligence or culpability was found in the actions of any individuals, though the reduction of gas valves was deemed “inadvisable.” The Navy’s penchant of complying with publicity requests was criticized. The movement of naval craft should be limited to military operations “in so far as possible, especially in the case of new and experimental types.”

During the two-year career of Shenandoah the LTA program had taken its first, faltering steps. Personnel had been trained, valuable experience accumulated, and the potential (and liabilities) of helium and water-recovery demonstrated. The disaster forced a reevaluation of the strength requirements for rigid airships; the Akron and Macon were built far stronger as one result. As well, control cars were built directly into the hulls, the engines placed inside. Fewer publicity flights would interfere with the operating schedules of Los Angeles and of Akron and Macon.

Rosendahl had become an attractive public figure overnight. His naval career prospered, and his influence began to dominate the young LTA program. On the other hand, the experience, rank, and influence that Lansdowne could have exerted had been wrenched away—an incalculable loss to the cause.²⁷