Adventures of a Navy Blimp
12 MAY 1944
ADVENTURES OF A NAVY BLIMP
The years between the World Wars saw the development of lighter-than-air zeppelins and blimps, initially useful in the civilian common carrier industry by virtue of their sustained cruising capabilities. These same cruising and loitering potentials made blimps ideal for anti-submarine patrols off our coasts during WWII, and our Navy employed several classes of blimps for that purpose. But these blimps often found themselves handy for a variety of other tasks.
K-67 was one such blimp operating out of Moffett Field near San Francisco. Japanese submarines rarely visited our west coast, and K-67’s patrols with Squadron ZP-31 were often boring. Her crew welcomed the occasional odd mission, as happened after her arrival in July 1943. A man suspected of dodging his draft board was thought to be working on a fishing boat, out of reach of shore authorities. K-67 was sent to locate that fishing boat at sea, which she did. Her crew dropped messages wrapped around oranges, and the gentleman in question was corralled!
Then on this date K-67 was tapped for a rescue mission. A Navy F6F Hellcat had crashed at sea, and a PBY Catalina sent to rescue her pilot landed hard in the heavy swells and split her seams. The PBY quickly flooded down enough to prevent her ever getting airborne again. Working in concert with K-59, K-67 was sent to locate the downed flyers near San Nicholas Island off Southern California. Once overhead the crew of the PBY could be seen clinging to their half-sunken Catalina, but the pilot of the F6F floated face-down in the waves, apparently swimming weakly. K-67’s pilot, ENS John Hoag, vectored nearby ships to the scene, then dove dangerously low to only 20 feet off the waves. He dropped an automatically inflating life raft that landed within 15 feet of the F6F pilot, who made no effort to gain the raft. In a desperate attempt to save the drowning pilot, ARM1c J.A. Sosnowski suspended himself on a rope 10 feet below the blimp’s gondola. He had nearly reached the victim when a large wave knocked him away. Soaked, but still clinging to the line, Sosnowski was towed through the water by Hoag, who skillfully maneuvered the blimp to bring the First Class safely within reach of the PBY. Before any further rescue attempts were made, the crew of the PBY determined the pilot had drowned.
USS McFARLAND (DD-237) arrived in the next 30 minutes. She recovered all the personnel and sank the flooded PBY with gunfire. McFARLAND, herself, had an interesting history. Commissioned DD-237 after WWI, she was converted to seaplane tender AVD-14 in 1940. She was re-converted to DD-237 on 1 December 1943 and operated out of San Diego in carrier pilot training duties.
Watch for more “Today in Naval History” 16 MAY 25
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Department of the Navy, Naval History Division. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 4 “L-M”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1969, pp. 299-300.
Shock, James R. U.S. Navy Airships 1915-1962: A History by Individual Airship. Edgewater, FL: Atlantis Pub., 2001, p. 119.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: McFARLAND remembers, Captain of the Forecastle John McFarland, a Union sailor in the Civil War. McFarland was in sickbay on 5 August 1864 when his ship, USS HARTFORD, led RADM Farragut’s squadron into Mobile Bay. McFarland left his sickbed to man the wheel of HARTFORD as Farragut “damned the torpedoes” and charged ahead. McFarland was awarded the Medal of Honor.
