Customer Reviews

Blimps & U-Boats: U.S. Navy Airships in the Battle of the Atlantic

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Of all the books written about the participation of U.S. Navy blimps in protecting our convoys and other individual ships during WW-II, this is the most entertaining and authentic book out
there... Gordon Vaeth should know, he was there and did it all.
Never was a ship lost to a German submarine that was escorted by a U.S. Navy blimp. They were always there and the German subs
were truely scared of them. Yes, we did cause the sinking of
several subs, regardless of what others say.

I knew of Mr.VAETH work thru his National Geographic article about the discovery of the wreckage of USS Macon (a rigid airship capable of launching and recovering aircrafts in flight) off California. I found he was a passionate lover of a forever gone era of silent giants of the skies. This book skips very quickly on the first days of USN airships, just to give an overview of the previous experiences and focuses on the WW2 years. By the way, I'm very fond of experiments and developments in airships from WW1 thru the '30..., nevertheless, I appreciated Mr.VAETH work even if he analyzes a less fascinating moment of LTA history. In this book, indeed, he explains in details the maturity era of airships: mass-produced (relatively to their specific mission), reliables, with a well defined operational doctrine, USN WW2 airships scored a good success. After the maturity, however, the decline was inevitable and, despite some occasional notices of "Airship renaissance", nowadays Blimps are only adverising vehicles. So, like dinosaurs (a big, powerful, mythical, disappeared species) Blimps are full of interest. I reccommend this book to everybody interested in Airships and Naval Aviation history, because it shows a lesser known aspect of antisubmarine warfare, describing training, operations, units and history of men and machines deployed to defend Allied Convoys against German Submarines in the "Battle of Atlantic" patrolling from above.