🧵: Have you heard the story of Charles “Bub” (or “Bud”) Cowart, the sailor who in May 1932 spent almost two hours dangling from a rope beneath the airship USS Akron before he was finally rescued? #AviationHistory 
2/ It’s a wild story I discovered while researching my family’s history with airships. My great-great grandfather was director of the Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation — here he is with the father of naval aviation, Admiral Moffett, who would die in the crash of the Akron in 1933.
3/ C.E. Rosendahl was in command of the Akron during the Cowart incident and recounts the story in his 1938 book “What About the Airship?” — which even then was “advocating a lost cause,” as the NY Times put it in a charitable review: timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1…
4/ The Akron was attempting to land at Camp Kearny near San Diego (now home to MCAS Miramar). But the air was turbulent, the mooring winch wasn’t up to the job & the young naval recruits trying to steady the airship with ropes — including 18-year-old Cowart — had no experience.
5/ There were two of these long ropes extending laterally from the Akron’s bow. At the end of each line were a number of trail ropes with wooden toggles to grasp for handholds. As Cowart recalled at the time, his orders were to “hang onto that rope.”
6/ When it became clear the mooring attempt was doomed, Rosendahl chose to cast off. “By megaphone and radio telephone we shouted to the ground crew to ‘Stand by to let go everything.’ More than a minute later we sang out the order to ‘Cut the main wire and let go everything.’”
7/ Most of the young sailors did, except for four who clung to trail ropes on the port line and were pulled aloft. One let go quickly; two others fell from several hundred feet and were killed. (Although not named by Rosendahl, they were Nigel Henton, 19, and Robert Edsall, 20.)
8/ The fourth, Cowart, “made a snap decision when we were yanked off the ground. I climbed the rope, hand over hand, like a monkey until I could sit astraddle the rope and rest on the toggle,” the Oklahoma native told a reporter for The Daily Oklahoman 44 years later.
9/ “The ground was falling away fast, but I didn’t look down,” he said. “I learned that trick climbing oil derricks in Oklahoma. Look up. I kept my eyes on the airship, and held on for dear life.”
10/ The Akron crew first tried to descend low enough to allow Cowart to jump to the ground. But the air was bumpy, making it impossible to control the airship’s altitude accurately enough to lay the end of the rope gently on the ground.
11/ So instead they used an onboard winch designed for stowing mooring wire to reel in the much thicker rope. It was slow going, since 15 feet of rope would fill the drum, then they’d have to stop and throw the rope clear before winching in more.
12/ “Meanwhile, for what seemed an eternity, we cruised in wide circles about the field, some 1500 feet above the ground and at as slow a speed as control of the ship permitted,” Rosendahl described.
13/ Finally, Cowart was brought on board, apparently none the worse for wear. “Coolest cucumber I ever saw,” Rosendahl told reporters: newspapers.com/image/?clippin…
14/ Apparently, Cowart was most excited to check out the Akron’s airplane hangar, and can you blame him? It’s cool as hell that the Akron was a flying aircraft carrier. More details on that here: airships.net/us-navy-rigid-…
15/ Cowart’s story garnered worldwide attention and featured in multiple newsreels. Here’s some of the archival footage on YouTube:
16/ And here’s the 1976 account in The Daily Oklahoman, with recollections by Rosendahl, then 84, as well as Cowart: newspapers.com/image/?clippin…
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