{"id":787,"date":"2016-09-01T11:59:10","date_gmt":"2016-09-01T15:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zrsthemovie.com\/?page_id=787"},"modified":"2020-11-19T17:20:59","modified_gmt":"2020-11-19T22:20:59","slug":"uss-macon-evolves","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/zrsthemovie.com\/?page_id=787","title":{"rendered":"USS Macon Evolves"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The wondrous illustration above, created for the <\/em>National Geographic\u00a0January 1992 issue by Richard and Kent Leech, was sent to the producer late in 1991 because as publication deadline approached, the consultant N.G. selected, then-AEROSTATION Editor Donald Woodward (photo inset with a Lightship), was recovering from a heart attack in a local hospital. \u00a0Its captions corrected and published, the fold-out graphic accompanied an article by the late great Gordon Vaeth about <\/em>Macon and the 1990\u00a0discovery of her resting place lead by\u00a0Monterrey\u00a0Bay Aquarium and Research Institute\u2019s Christopher Grech.<\/em><\/p>\n

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\"Waco\"“Min” Miller remembered, “By this time, we also had picked up a couple of XJW-1 s. (right) That was the old\u00a0commercial Waco with two seats forward and the pilot aft. It was a biplane. We put hooks\u00a0on those so that now we had a “taxi” airplane that could carry people back and forth to the\u00a0airship.”<\/p>\n

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\"WilleyLCDR Herbert Wiley, last skipper of a Navy rigid airship, poses with his three children at left with a\u00a0XJW-1. He was a widower. (Wiley’s daughter Marie would decades later play a key role in locating the Macon’s<\/em> resting place. Son Gordon “Scroggie” Wiley retired as a USN Captain and helped our historical effort supplying his Dad’s films.) He had a somewhat higher-pitched voice and the men nicknamed him “Tee-Hee.” However, they would soon learn\u00a0Wiley was determined to\u00a0whip\u00a0Macon <\/i>and her planes into shape.<\/p>\n

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Attention turned to the ship\u2019s ability to defend itself assuming attacking aircraft if it could not hide in clouds or if the enemy got through the ship\u2019s screen of fighters. \u00a0In addition to lower mounts in the control car and lower vertical fin’s control station (shown on our DVD \u201cThe Flying Carriers\u201d<\/a><\/span>)\u00a0 topside gun mounts in fore and aft main rings were accessible from the upper keel walkway. \u00a0Atop main ring 187.5, in between the divided vents for cell XI, the photos show where a Browning M-2 machine gun would have been placed. At right is a practice mounting on the ground on which they fired 500 rounds. The Assistant Battery Officer controlled the topside guns from his perch on main ring 170, and could advise\u00a0the Captain to maneuver the ship to “embarrass airplanes attacking from overhead.”<\/p>\n

\"TOPSIDE\"<\/p>\n

Miller, recently stepping into the position of senior pilot in the HTA unit (or “squadron”),\u00a0 remembered when giving his oral history, “During all this time, we practiced gunnery. We had our own heavier-than-air\u00a0problems for exercises to do. We’d fly over the San Francisco Peninsula there and fire\u00a0machine guns out over the Pacific. We did a lot of work on the side and kept up with all\u00a0the heavier-than-air requirements.” There was only one ordnanceman for both the ship and the HTA unit for most of the program. The Tactical Officer was to receive assistance from the Gunnery Officer, both stationed in the control car at action stations.\u00a0The literature does not reveal how many “live fire” exercises the ship herself held, but defensive gun positions were as follows:\u00a0#1 main frame 187.5, #2 m.f. 170, #3 m.f. 57.5 all three upper keel. \u00a0#4 stern cap; #5 and #6 starboard and port control car; and #7 and #8 lower fin starboard and port.<\/p>\n

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The tight quarters in the lower fin encouraged those gunners to be qualified as elevator and rudder men respectively, but\u00a0this was not always possible. \u00a0It was noted the sideward looking control car mounts were impossible to train directly forward, so the bridge\u00a0was somewhat vulnerable to the head-on airplane attack. In most of the program, the ships flew with Mark III – I gun cameras\u00a0in all ten\u00a0positions so at least close-in gunner’s aim and technique could be evaluated with no danger to the “enemy.” Requests were made for better optics to allow training at greater sighting distances.<\/p>\n

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The traditional airship applications had been developed by the Allies during the Great War. These included Tactical and strategic scouting, observation, contact scouting, screening of both naval and merchant vessels, transport of supplies to outlying bases, reconnaissance, and even placement of secret agents into enemy territory. Macon<\/em> was\u00a0developing new missions.\u00a0There was even discussion of adding anti-submarine warfare, if a suitable underwater listening device could be mounted. (The British tested hydrophones on ASW blimps in WWI; the US developed a towed model using a B-ship in 1919. ) A larger, downward-firing gun was considered.<\/p>\n

\"Best-Macon-4<\/p>\n

BuAer Chief RADM King continued his support by ordering Rosendahl and Heinen to visit Sunnyvale and offer suggestions. Though they were known to dislike each other and probably disagreed on procedures, the two were undoubtedly surprised to find Wiley had literally re-written the book on large rigid airships – \u00a0by perfecting the\u00a0flying carrier.<\/p>\n

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As had been proposed since\u00a0the Sparrowhawk\u2019s first selection, that once aboard, removing the fixed landing gear and installing the existing cross-country fuel tank would extend the range and speed of the airplanes. (Only motion pictures of this configuration are existent. These are included on our DVD The Flying Carriers<\/span><\/a>, including dual launch and recoveries from the trapeze and the fixed \u201cperch\u201d on frame 102.5.) \u00a0\"F9C2less\"Wiley\u2019s first major action with his new command was a bold demonstration of the flying carrier\u2019s open-ocean search capability, this raison d’\u00eatre <\/i>never given a chance in the close-in more tactical exercises usually scheduled by senior leadership. \u00a0The newly enlarged operating ranges of the F9C-2s would be a key part of this opportunity.<\/p>\n

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Wiley reasoned that the announced general time and launch origination\u00a0of vacationing President Roosevelt\u2019s cruiser would be similar to probable intelligence provided for a wartime search mission. \u00a0Following what news they’d received, he\u00a0figured finding the cruiser after they’d passed through the Panama Canal, and had been in the Pacific\u00a0for a few days, would show even the most jaded critics what the LTA carrier could do. As Shock reported<\/span><\/a>, \u201cOn July 18, 1934, ZRS-5 departed Sunnyvale on a scouting mission that was to cause some controversy in the Navy high command.\u00a0 1,500 miles from land and over the Pacific, its trapeze planes located the heavy cruisers USS Houston <\/i>and USS New Orleans<\/i>, which were en route from Panama to Hawaii.” Miller and Kivette had been sent out athwartship and conducted the long-practiced search pattern, with Kivette spotting the cruisers about 1145. Miller quickly joined him, which caused some concerns aboard the cruisers. \u00a0As R.K. Smith wrote, “It was a starling experience to see two tiny airplanes appear out of nowhere so far at sea, especially when it was known that all the Navy’s carriers were in the Atlantic. Someone remarked apprehensively that the planes were carrying bombs. But [OOD on Houston<\/em> LTJG] Hines was \u00a0a Naval Aviator; he recognized the F9C’s by their skyhooks, and their “bombs” as auxiliary fuel tanks. The holiday mood which attended the President’s cruise aboard the Houston<\/em> was greater than ever as all hands off duty crowded the decks to watch for the Macon’s<\/em> appearance. ” Dodging squalls, Macon<\/em>\u00a0came in and recovered her planes, then re-launched them – with gift bags.<\/p>\n

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Miller recalled in his oral history<\/span><\/a>, “In the bag was a San Francisco Chronicle of the day we had left;\u00a0there was the latest issue of Time; and I guess the Newsweek. I knew the President was a\u00a0stamp collector, so in the bag there were also about 20 letters addressed to people: one to\u00a0Min Miller, one to the President, one to Eleanor, and one to Wiley. \u00a0We both shoved off,\u00a0and now we were trailing this bag. We hadn’t planned it very well because we planned just\u00a0a light little bag…\u00a0so I made a pass\u00a0over the Houston’s<\/em> forecastle and overshot. Knappy came along behind me and he\u00a0overshot. Well, both cruisers stopped dead in the water and put whaleboats over the side\u00a0and rescued these things. At that point, of course, the radios were going back and forth and\u00a0the President said, “Well done, Macon<\/em>.” Of course no good deed went unpunished; Wiley was chastised for not obtaining permission for the mission he knew would likely not be approved, and the legitimate concern only the Macon<\/em> knew where she – and her crew – was located if they developed a problem.<\/p>\n

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As luck would have it, on the return leg\u00a0transpired the only potentially serious HTA mishap with any of the three Navy airship carriers. Leroy Simpler, the pilot involved, related the story to the producer in 1980 and his version was verified in the Smith book. \u201cDucky\u201d Ward recalled some different\u00a0details: “We did have one incident that happened and could have been a disaster. This happened in a flight to intercept the cruiser [USS Houston<\/i>] off the coast of Mexico. President Roosevelt was making a trip in the Pacific Ocean and the Macon<\/i> decided to take him mail, etc. We made the interception off the coast of Mexico. Two fighters took off from the Macon<\/i> with mail in waterproof bags with a line attached just in case the drop was missed by the ship. Everything went along as planned until the second plane came back to the Macon<\/i>. It was raining heavily and the weather was getting quite bad with gusty winds. As a result of a gust, the plane hit the yoke of the trapeze with such force that two struts of the tripod were broken off. That left only one strut with the hook to hook-on to the ship. All preparations were made for an emergency landing. \"img621\"This was a case where we had to get the plane and pilot back on board; not enough gasoline and minus landing gear, it was out of the question to make it back to land. So it was either make a hook-on or ditch the plane at sea. [Following a careful trap] the plane was hanging on one strut to the trapeze. I went down onto the trapeze with a cable and shackle. I put a loop of cable around the propeller shaft and the other end shackled to the yoke of the trapeze. Then the plane was hoisted aboard. This was not a one-man operation; the whole hangar crew was to be commended for a job well done. We probably saved the pilot\u2019s life as well as the plane. I don\u2019t believe the pilot or the crew will ever forget that incident.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Floatation\"Had Simpler’s hook and support been more severely damaged, or if in combat the arresting gear had been shot up, it was not necessarily a death sentence.\u00a0Like many Navy airplanes of the era, the F9C-2 was equipped with emergency flotation bags. Even in the event of simple engine failure ditching, CO2 bottles would inflate the bags in 40 seconds, keeping\u00a0 plane and pilot afloat.<\/p>\n

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\"raft\"In the open ocean scouting well ahead of the fleet, a downed pilot could hardly hope for a chance submarine rescue in the manner so many were saved in WWII. Rather, with the entire colorful airplane largely afloat making a more reasonable search target than a man bobbing in the water, the Macon<\/i> herself would find and hover over the victim to\u00a0lower its pilot rescue sling via the spy basket\u2019s very long winch cable.\u00a0This Lakehurst Engineering print from the NARA (left) is dated 6-12-33, so of course it was not tested aboard Akron. <\/i>While there are no photographs, motion pictures (included in our DVD “Flying Carriers”<\/a>)<\/span> show the device.\u00a0Miller remembered, “So we then rigged up a circular insulated life raft\u00a0with the webbing inside the safety belt. The idea then was to lower that on the water with\u00a0this 4,000-foot cable, and a downed pilot would get in the raft and get hoisted aboard. Doc Wiley would lower that thing in the San Francisco Bay, and he would tow it\u00a0from this big airship and tow it down there alongside of a buoy and you could do any damn\u00a0thing you wanted with this thing.\u00a0I wanted to\u00a0climb into the raft and then get hoisted aboard, just to show it could be done. But that’s\u00a0how we were going to tow a pilot out of the drink if we lost one. Fortunately, we never\u00a0had to do that.” On August 7th, Macon’s<\/em>\u00a0flight completed a full-power test run of one hour.<\/p>\n

An edited film of Macon’s<\/em> mature ground handling cycle, shot by noted photographer Carroll who’d flown aboard, is included in our DVD “Airship Handling.”\u00a0 This film was packed with the April 1935 “Macon post-mortem” report forwarded to the Bureau of Aeronautics with the recommendation a sound track be added to make it a more valuable reference for ground handling operations.\u00a0 An edited version appears on the zrsthemovie.com Youtube channel:<\/p>\n

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