The Galveston County Daily News

“Forgotten Weapon: U.S. Navy Airships and the U-boat War,” by William F. Althoff, Naval Institute Press, 2009, 432 pages, $45.96

Near Gulf Greyhound Park in Galveston County is a road with the odd name of “Blimp Base Road.” Follow it, and you reach a field with several strange-looking brick towers. They are the remnants of infrastructure supporting a curious and largely forgotten weapon of World War II — anti-submarine airships.

Hitchcock marked the western anchor of a chain of blimp bases built to protect the Gulf of Mexico from German U-boats.

The story of the U.S. Navy’s airships and their role in the war against U-boats is presented in “Forgotten Weapon” by William F. Althoff. “Forgotten Weapon” fills an important void in World War II history.

While airships played an important role in World War II, their contributions have been neglected. Previous books on this subject include a few pamphlets written immediately after World War II and the autobiographical novel “Lighter Than Air,” which appeared in 1961.

Althoff traces the development of the World War II Navy’s airship service from its inception immediately before the United States entered the war. The Navy was ambivalent about blimps, feeling that the lighter-than-air era had passed with the dirigible. Yet blimps, despite their anachronistic appearance, proved useful in fighting submarines.

Then-cutting-edge technology including magnetic anomaly detectors, microwave radar and radio sono-buoys allowed blimps to find submarines, when other aircraft could not. Their endurance, unmatched by any other aircraft, permitted them to pin a detected U-boat until ships or aircraft could destroy them.

At its height, the Navy had 15 airship squadrons and more than 200 blimps. They served in the north and south Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and on the American Pacific coast. Yet the Navy decommissioned the last airship squadron in January 1946.

Althoff provides a comprehensive account of airship service during that period — including occasional mentions of the Hitchcock base. He describes the construction and deployment of the blimps used, covers the structure of the Navy’s airship organization, and provides a thorough operational history of the service.

The tale related by Althoff is absorbing, despite — perhaps because of — the topic’s obscurity. The book is lavishly supplied with photographs. The 150 included illustrate all aspects of the Navy’s airship service. Althoff follows the training of the crews, shows the weapons used, and follows the blimps into combat.

“Forgotten Weapon” provides an authoritative reference on an obscure corner of history. This account will fascinate any reader with an interest in the naval history of World War II.

Mark Lardas, an engineer, freelance writer, amateur historian and model-maker, lives in League City.