L-8
U.S. Navy blimp whose two-man crew disappeared in 1942
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Key Takeaways
- L-8 , later renamed America and popularly known as the " Ghost Blimp ", was a United States Navy L-class airship whose two crewmen disappeared over the Pacific Ocean on August 16, 1942.
- L-8 briefly made contact with the ground at Ocean Beach, causing damage to the airship, then drifted over San Francisco and crashed on Bellevue Avenue, Daly City.
- Background The L-class was a series of non-rigid airships (blimps), produced for the United States Navy in 1937, based upon the small commercial blimps produced by the Goodyear Aircraft Company that were used for advertising purposes.
- By August 1942, Japanese submarines had shelled Ellwood Oil Field in California and Fort Stevens in Oregon.
- One of the responses by the Navy included a takeover of Goodyear's five-airship fleet, operating them out of the Navy's two major lighter-than-air bases at Lakehurst in New Jersey and Moffett Field in California.
L-8, later renamed America and popularly known as the "Ghost Blimp", was a United States Navy L-class airship whose two crewmen disappeared over the Pacific Ocean on August 16, 1942. At 11:15 a.m., several hours after the airship lifted off from Treasure Island, San Francisco, California, L-8 reappeared off the shore of Ocean Beach near Fort Funston. L-8 briefly made contact with the ground at Ocean Beach, causing damage to the airship, then drifted over San Francisco and crashed on Bellevue Avenue, Daly City. No traces of its crewmen, Lieutenant Ernest DeWitt Cody and Ensign Charles Adams, have ever been found.
Background
The L-class was a series of non-rigid airships (blimps), produced for the United States Navy in 1937, based upon the small commercial blimps produced by the Goodyear Aircraft Company that were used for advertising purposes.
After the United States declared war on Japan in response to the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Imperial Japanese Navy sank at least half a dozen Allied ships off of the West Coast over a period of several months. By August 1942, Japanese submarines had shelled Ellwood Oil Field in California and Fort Stevens in Oregon. Heightened fears of an invasion had also prompted the Battle of Los Angeles, in which a false alarm was raised over what later was determined to be a weather balloon.
One of the responses by the Navy included a takeover of Goodyear's five-airship fleet, operating them out of the Navy's two major lighter-than-air bases at Lakehurst in New Jersey and Moffett Field in California. These Goodyear blimps were incorporated into an "L-class" with designations L-4 through L-8. While they were too small for any extensive operational use, the blimps were considered ideal for training missions and coastal antisubmarine patrols.
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