Customer Reviews

USS Los Angeles: The Navy's Venerable Airship and Aviation Technology

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Everyone knows about the Hindenburg and it's famous fire. People interested in airships know about the other failures such as the Macon and Shenandoah. Above them all, however, was the Los Angeles.

Built at the Zeppelin factory after World War I, this ship sailed the Atlantic and became an official Navy ship. In the early days of air craft technology it flew more than 300 flights, over 4,000 hours in the air, almost without incident. It taught us a lot about the design and operation of lighter than air aircraft.

This book is a complete history of the Los Angeles, but perhaps even more important, it fits the Los Angeles into the overall development of aviation during the years between the world wars. Here is a discussion on other lighter than air machines, and also on the developments in heavier than air conventional planes. This was the time when the Langley was built.

This was also the time of the battleship admirals who saw nothing of any value in operating in the air. This attitude would last until a little incident at Pearl Harbor.

The saddest part of the book is the section on the dismantling of the airship. On 24 October 1939 the Los Angeles was stricken from the active Navy ship list. Disassembly began immediately. Cdr. Jesse L. Kenworthy, Jr. was anxious to complete the project, and with on fanfare. He said that he was concerned with "the approaching need for additional hangar space." Selling it as scrap gave the Navy less than $4,000. So was destroyed an important piece of history.

This is a truly remarkable resource not only for the USS Los Angeles dirigible. There is a history of the small Naval airship fleet as well. The complete Los Angeles log book is included with descriptions of its short career that included a whopping 331 sorties.
Steve Gerkin