Warbird Information Exchange

ww 2 u.s. navy blimps are a very much obscure & ignored topic. while they served & performed, pictures & info are scarce. i'd like to see or hear about actual blimp combat ops while on convoy patrol etc in the north atlantic, or pacific oceans nailing u boats, crew recovery ops from ship sinkings etc. this info has to be out their, while i'm sure short in quantity because i know their combat action was limited.

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

I agree that it is rather an ignored topic. Your thread rang a bell about something I had heard about. After a bit of digging about, here it is.http://www.check-six.com/Crash_Sites/L-8_crash_site.htm

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If the first casualty of war is innocence, the second is sobriety - Hawkeye.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws - Plato.
Lies get halfway round the world before the truth has a chance to get it's pants on - Churchill
If you are going through he11 - keep going - Churchill

great current photo crash perspective!!

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

It's also amazing that the gondola was rebuilt and reused and has survived to this day!!

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If the first casualty of war is innocence, the second is sobriety - Hawkeye.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws - Plato.
Lies get halfway round the world before the truth has a chance to get it's pants on - Churchill
If you are going through he11 - keep going - Churchill

The L-8 was also the same ship that brought supplies out the the Doolittle Raiders on their way to Tokyo. Wish I could find some good drawings of the L-8.

Ryan

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Aerial Photographer with Red Wing Aerial Photography currently based at KRBD and tailwheel CFI.
Websites: Texas Tailwheel Flight Training, DoolittleRaid.com and Lbirds.com.

The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the LORD. - Prov. 21:31 - Train, Practice, Trust.

I've always been interested in WWII blimp operations here on the east coast.
Not much is ever mentioned that I can find. There used to be two huge blimp hangars on the NC coast. Now there is only one. There must have been some significant operations here with a facility like that ???

L-8's gondola in the shop at Pensacola--summer, 2005. Anyone know if she's on display in the museum yet?

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It was a good idea, it just didn't work.

My dad has a friend that was in the blimp corps during WW2. Apparantly there is an association that many of the survivors belong to that have documented much of what went on. I'm sure some Googling will find it.

There was also a thread on the WIX about a website that had a lot of fantastic original photos and the story of one man's service. Anyone remember?

<EDIT> Lookie what I found!

http://battleblimps.com/direct.html

http://battleblimps.com/resource.html

http://www.naval-airships.org/