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The United States Navy proposed to the U.S. Congress the development of a lighter-than-air station program for anti-submarine patrolling of the coast and harbors. This program proposed, in addition to the expansion at NAS and Lakehurst, the construction of new stations. The original contract was for steel hangars, long, wide and high, helium storage and service, barracks for 228 men, a power plant, landing mat, and a mobile mooring mast. The ''Second Deficiency Appropriation Bill'' for 1941 passed in July 1941, changing the authorization to the construction of eight facilities to accommodate a total of 48 airships (as requested in 1940). But due to rationing of steel, the large hangars were built of wood. Standardized plans were drawn up by the Navy Department Bureau of Yards and Docks with Arsham Amirikian acting as principal engineer. This resulting design was long, wide and high. the structure used fifty-one timber trusses resting on concrete frames containing two-story workshop and office areas. At each end concrete and wood structures support tall rolling doors. Seventeen of these wooden hangars were completed by the Navy Department Bureau of Yards and Docks in 1943. Some of these new hangars were built at Lakehurst, Moffett, Weymouth and Weeksville; bases which already had metal hangars. ==Airship expansion== At the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 which brought the United States into World War II, the US had 10 nonrigid airships: *Combat & Patrol Ships * * 2 TC-class blimps: older patrol ships built in 1933 for the US Army's airship operations. The US Navy had acquired TC-13 and TC-14 from the United States Army in 1938. * * 4 K-class blimps: ''K-2'', ''K-3'', ''K-4'' and ''K-5'' designed as patrol ships and built from 1938. *Training Ships * * 3 L-class blimps: ''L-1'', ''L-2'' and ''L-3'', produced as small training ships from 1938. * * 1 G-class blimp: built in 1936 for training. The TC and K class blimps were quickly pressed into service against Japanese and German submarines which were then sinking American shipping within visual range of the American coast. On 2 January 1942 the US Navy formed the ZP-12 patrol unit based in Lakehurst from the four ''K'' airships. A month later, the ZP-32 patrol unit was formed at NAS Moffett Field in Sunnyvale, California from two ''TC'' and two ''L'' airships. An airship training base was also created at Moffett Field. The US Navy command, remembering the airship anti-submarine success from World War I, immediately requested new modern anti-submarine airships. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「US Navy airships during World War II」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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