Lighter-Than-Air-Convoys

There were still too many sinkings. The Navy announced this week that twelve merchant ships were sunk last week. That brought the announced total of ships sunk in the Atlantic since Pearl Harbor to 150. Furthermore, a destroyer was lost off Florida--the 1920 four-piper Sturtevant.

The only way to cut sinkings is by port-to-port convoy--a thing which is impossible for coastal shipping at a time when the U.S. Navy is busy convoying to Australia, to Iceland, to the Middle East. But the U.S. Navy has begun to develop a substitute which may prove to be a lifeline-saver: convoy by blimp.

Fortnight ago Rear Admiral John Wills Greenslade, commissioning Moffett Field in California as a base for blimp patrols on the West Coast, said: "To date on both coasts no convoy has been successfully attacked while under lighter-than-air convoy." He might have said more.

Blimps as convoying weapons are uniquely fitted for anti-submarine work off the U.S. coasts, where they have no fear of air attack. The British have used one kind of lighter-than-air protection in barrage balloons trailed behind ships to make dive-bombing and mast-level bombing hazardous.

U.S. blimps now in convoy service comprise what the Navy calls the K Class. They are of 416,000 cu. ft., are powered with two airplane engines, can hover motionless in the air or make 55 m.p.h.

Their cabin, which blimpmen call "the car," is fitted out with airline luxury--three bunks, chrome chairs, cookstove. There is a reason for these comforts. Effective watch is a terrible strain, especially when the lookout must scan not only the surface, but underwater--for U--boats have a habit of lying motionless on the continental shelf in daytime. Consequently blimp observers can stand watch only a little over an hour at a time, are encouraged to doze during the off watches. Any comfort they can be given is not wasted.

Piloting a blimp requires great skill. Both pilot and copilot work hard. They have an instrument panel much like that of an airplane to watch, also numerous pressure gauges and valves which control altitude. Steering, especially on windy days, is work for two men: the chief pilot works the elevators, the copilot the rudder. The number of blimps now in service is secret. It is not yet large, but within a few months it is expected to be. If it is, the U.S. will have what amounts to a two-ocean Navy sooner than it expected.

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