Observe and Report: US Navy on the Hindenburg

摘要

Having shown little interest in Americans being wowed by "rubber cows" flown by showmen on American city tours, by 1913 the US Navy decided to investigate European aeronautical progress by sending Lieutenant Commander Jerome Hunsaker to Europe. Disguised as a tourist, Hunsaker bought a ticket on the rigid airship passenger liner Victoria Luise. Hunsaker's report failed to inspire Congress into funding an American airship, since no one would have foreseen Count Zeppelin's rigid airships becoming wonders of the military world as of the Count's death just four years later. Rightly or wrongly credited with World War One battle-swaying intelligence at Jutland, every major Navy wanted their share of the seemingly exotic Zeppelin technology when Versailles sought to strip Germany of anything useful. Not a signatory, the United States lost any chance in on the plunder when crews removed supports so their fragile rigid airships' own weight crushed them when cut loose of their hangers. American success with the delicate business of obtaining a factory original was largely the work of Commander Garlon Fulton, Naval Academy '12, roommate of Richard E. Byrd and classmate of Donald W. Douglas. Fulton's contributions as Inspector of Naval Aircraft are often overlooked even though he went on to head the Lighter-Than-Air Design Section of the Bureau of Aeronautics. Restrictions imposed on USS Los Angeles (ZR-3) military employment found sailors badly in need of long duration rigid airship experience, while the Germans rescued from dismemberment owed a debt to the American Navy - whose further cooperation Germany would need to operate airships in North America. When Shenandoah hero Charles E. Rosendahl disembarked from the Graf Zeppelin's around-the world cruise in 1929, the liaison was part of a seemingly bright future. We fast-forward through the next years' infrequent trips to the US with an American sailor or two aboard, then the launching and losing of two homemade rigid airships.