nowhere. In 1919 the Navy Department received authorization for two rigid airships and for a naval air station. That May, about 1,700 acres of the Camp Kendrick site were purchased “for use as a dirigible field,” what would become the Navy’s main LTA base on the Atlantic coast. R. F. Burd Jr.
The topography for many miles around is undisturbed by heights of any kind. Thus the station is not only visible at great distances in clear weather, but there is also the advantage that in thick weather, there is no additional danger in flying low to locate it. Also no local eddies due to high obstacles are formed.2
The unfavorable location of Lakehurst with regard to storm paths was overlooked. This would be unwittingly compounded when the hangar was not constructed with its long axis parallel to the predominant wind direction. The frequent cross-hangar winds would bedevil flight operations from the beginning. Moreover, Lakehurst’s location with respect to the Atlantic Fleet and its command structure in Norfolk, and its remove from fleet exercise areas, would, in the ensuing decades, artificially isolate lighter-than-air from the rest of the service. Removed as it was from major centers of population and from the mainstream Navy of the interwar years, Naval Air Station (NAS) Lakehurst tended to be an isolated and rather lonely command.
The sale of Camp Kendrick was postponed, and the Lakehurst site was recommended. On 16 May 1919, Acting Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the purchase of about seventeen hundred acres “for use as a naval dirigible field.” The secretary of war concurred in the transfer that June. The purchase price was $13,088, or about $8 to $10 an acre.
Three million dollars had been appropriated for a hangar to house two rigid airships, or ZRs. The design work for this unique structure fell to the Navy. Based on plans prepared by the old Joint Army and Navy Airship Board, the Bureau of Yards and Docks drew up specifications for a dirigible hangar on the Lakehurst site. In July 1919, thirty-one pages of general specifications were distributed by the bureau, calling for a dirigible hangar having concrete footings, reinforced concrete floors, steel frame, steel sash and doors, steel rolling doors, asbestos siding, gypsum roof, built-up roofing, copper skylights, gutters, downspouts and ventilators, wood-block floors, terra-cotta partitions, metal stairs, elevators, railroad tracks, docking rails, kitchen equipment, plumbing, heating, lighting, and electrical equipment.3
Britain’s R-34 at Roosevelt Field, NY, 6–9 July 1919. R-34 made the first transatlantic leap by airship and was the third aircraft of any kind to cross. Its round-trip transit underscored the commercial potential of rigid airships. Observer: Lt. Cdr. Zachary Lansdowne, USN, the first American to cross by air. In 1919 the concept of practicable transoceanic air transport—aircraft plus payload—meant airships, not airplanes. Note the hydrogen cylinders. B. J. Countryman
The final design was a structure 943 feet long, 350 feet wide, and 200 feet high overall. The hangar space would be, for some years, the largest single room in the world: an 804-by-264-foot room having a 193-foot clearance at the centerline. Structurally, the hangar was comparatively simple. Ten steel arches (the world’s largest) were supported on towers tied together with longitudinal girders, the entire assembly covered with corrugated asbestos sheathing bolted to the framework. The four 1,350-ton doors were an engineering challenge, however. The two leaves on each end were mounted on eight-wheel trucks, which rolled sideways on standard gauge tracks. Each door was freestanding, counterweighted with concrete, and operated by a twenty-horsepower electric motor, which opened each leaf in thirteen minutes. Three sets of railroad tracks were built through the hangar and fifteen hundred feet beyond each end. These would receive taxiing cars for the centerline gondolas of each airship. Mechanical assistance was augmented further by three docking rails or trolley slots; bow and stern handling lines would be made fast by tackles to mobile trolleys during the docking evolution.
The Lakehurst hangar, known as Hangar No. 1, was intended to be largely self-contained. Living as well as office and shop spaces were provided along both sides of the berthing space in a two-deck arrangement. But the barracks, cafeteria, medical dispensary, and other accommodations were little used and were converted quickly to other purposes. The hangar’s work spaces included offices and shops essential to the operation of a large military airship: a wire shop, joiner shop, fabric shop, motor repair shop, machine shop, offices for administration, a gas-cell storage and repair space, blueprint and drafting rooms, instrument repair shop, and others.
Sealed proposals from private bidders were accepted in Washington until 6 August 1919, when the competition officially closed. The Lord Construction Company was selected as the general contractor with a successful bid of $2,900,000. The Bethlehem Steel and Bridge Company would erect the steel framework. The contract was signed on 8 September 1919, and work on the site started two weeks later. A force of eight hundred men set about clearing a site and laying a branch line to the main railway, which had to be done before the hangar itself could be started. Foundation work for the huge structure was completed over the winter months of 1919–20, and the first truss was hoisted into position on 17 May. The remaining nine arches were erected one a week thereafter. The east doors were the last part of the structure to be completed. By late 1920 general outfitting and application of the asbestos siding was under way. These panels were arranged in alternating strips of gray and two shades of brown to ease the monotony of a solid color and, according to Aviation magazine, to break up the outline of the building and thus “make it difficult for a hostile observer to locate it from the air.”4
Proposed layouts for the new base had been prepared as early as October 1919 by Cdr. Ralph D. Weyerbacher, Bureau of Construction and Repair (Construction Corps, CC), who was later named manager of the station when it was ready for occupancy and assembly of the airship. These early plans included the hangar and landing field, as well as an administration building, garage, mess hall, barracks, chief petty officer (CPO) quarters, a recreation building, hospital, a bachelor officers quarters (BOQ) and quarters for married officers, a “Wireless and Meteorology Station,” a power plant, a hydrogen plant and gas storage, rail lines and roads, water supply, sewage disposal, and miscellaneous storage spaces and shops. Conspicuously absent from the list was a mooring mast.5
A permanent coal-fired power house was an early priority. As work progressed on the hangar, the power house was completed near the Ridgeway Branch. The plant would furnish electricity for operating the massive hangar doors and for lighting, as well as supplying steam for heat. It was intended to heat the 36-million-cubic-foot berthing space, so the necessary equipment was built into the shed. But early tests showed this was impractical, and the attempt was abandoned.6
Lakehurst’s hangar under construction, January 1921. The steelwork arches and the west door leafs are nearly complete, with application of asbestos siding under way. Note the branch railway to the main line and, at left, the barrack from Camp Kendrick. On 28 June 1921 the (incomplete) base was commissioned as the Naval Airship and Construction and Experiment Station. Complement: 17 seventeen officers and 230 enlisted men. NARA
Hangar No. 1. As fireproof as possible, it was intended originally for hydrogen-inflated rigid airships. Its berthing space was for a time the largest single room in the world. The siding pattern was an attempt at camouflage. Mrs. F. J. Tobin
The decision to inflate America’s airships with helium was still two years in the future. Thus, a hydrogen generation plant was constructed for the station. The plant was capable of generating seventy-five thousand cubic feet daily. A one-million-cubic-foot gasometer, two small holders, and space for five thousand cylinders were provided as storage. A sixteen-inch main would conduct the inflammable gas to the
