US Navy airships during World War II

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.

A month later, the ZP-32 patrol unit was formed at Naval Air Station Moffett Field in Sunnyvale, California from two TC and two L airships.

Plans for standardized wooden hangars were drawn up by the Navy Department Bureau of Yards and Docks with Arsham Amirikian acting as principal engineer.

Auxiliary Fields Naval Air Station Brunswick, Bar Harbor, Maine, Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, and Argentia, Newfoundland.

Operations The first two K-class blimps (K-123 & K-130) left Naval Air Station South Weymouth on 28 May, flying to Argentia, Newfoundland, the Azores, and finally to Port Lyautey They completed the first transatlantic crossing by nonrigid airships on 1 June.

[3] Their mission was to locate and destroy German U-boats in the relatively shallow waters around the Strait of Gibraltar where magnetic anomaly detection (MAD) was viable.

The blimps of ZP-14 (aka The Africa Squadron) also conducted mine-spotting and mine-sweeping operations in key Mediterranean ports and various escorts including the convoy carrying United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to the Yalta Conference in 1945.

Operations FASW 2 patrolled the northern Caribbean from San Julian,[clarification needed] the Isle of Pines (now called Isla de la Juventud) and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as well as Vernam Field, Jamaica.

Auxiliary Fields Del Mar, Lompoc, Watsonville and Eureka, California, North Bend and Astoria, Oregon, as well as Shelton and Quillayute in Washington.

K-74's depth charges did not release as she crossed the U-boat and K-74 received serious damage, losing gas pressure and an engine but landing in the water without loss of life.

The crew was rescued by patrol boats in the morning, but one crewman, Aviation Machinist's Mate Second Class Isadore Stessel, died from a shark attack.