Sky Ships. William Althoff
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