Lighter-than-air vehicles may prove useful in terror war

Lighter-than-air vehicles may prove useful in terror war

(EXCERPT) Then & Now : A new role?

Web Posted: 05/16/2004 12:00 AM CDT

Scott Huddleston Express-News Staff Writer

During World War II, the Navy built hundreds of blimps and used them
as convoy escorts to help protect ships from enemy submarines along
the country's coastline.

Now it appears that unmanned airships placed near the nation's shores
and borders could soon be tools for homeland security by guarding
against terrorism.

The first engine-powered airships developed in Europe in the early
1850s were followed by the dirigibles of the early 1900s that provided
a popular form of passenger travel. But the 1937 crash of the German
airship Hindenburg in Lakehurst, N.J., which was caught on film and on
live radio and widely publicized thereafter, destroyed public
confidence in airships, which by then were being surpassed by
airplanes as a preferred means of travel.

After Italy began using airships for reconnaissance in the early
1910s, Germany used them in World War I. A German airship, Graf
Zeppelin, completed the first around-the-world flight in 1929.

The Hindenburg disaster was preceded by four deadlier airship
tragedies. A crash during a test flight killed 44 people off the coast
of England in 1921. In 1923, 52 pe...

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Associate Librarian
The American War Library
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