Thread by @annalesbelli

- The WW2 Ghost Blimp 🧵 -

At 6:03 a.m., on August 16, 1942, L-8 lifted off from Treasure Island, San Francisco, on a coastal antisubmarine patrol (1/11) #svagaiature #History #Historia #USA #Mistery #Coldcase #USNavy

Inside the control car were Lieutenant Ernest DeWitt Cody, aged 27, and his co-pilot, Ensign Charles Adams, aged 35. L-8 was armed with two depth charges and one 30-caliber machine gun. At the time of the incident, the airship had made 1,092 previous safe trips (2/11)

At 7:38 a.m., L-8's crew radioed to Treasure Island and reported observing an oil slick. A Liberty ship and a fishing boat in the area both witnessed L-8 descending to within thirty feet of the ocean surface and circling the oil slick (3/11)

Shortly after 9:00 a.m., L-8 dumped ballast, ascended, and headed east – contrary to its intended course towards Point Reyes, which was to the northwest (4/11)

At 11:15 a.m., L-8 reappeared drifting towards the coastline at low elevation. The airship touched down on the beach, where two fishermen tried to hold it down by its tie lines. Upon looking inside its control car, the fishermen observed that no crew were inside (5/11)

Police and military personnel immediately descended upon the crash site. While the control car doors were found hanging open, and the crash had been so gentle that the crewmen would have walked away unharmed, neither Cody nor Adams were found inside (6/11)

Searches of the coastline from air, land and sea found no trace of the missing pilots, and the search was abandoned on August 18 (7/11)

Authorities initially theorized that Cody and Adams had bailed out the ocean, but all three parachutes and a rubber life raft were found aboard the control car. Furthermore, the radio and engines were switched on, and no distress transmissions had been sent (8/11)

A board of investigation convened by the Navy could only determine that L-8 had not been shot down, burned, or made contact with the ocean, and that Cody and Adams had not engaged in misconduct. Cody and Adams were declared legally dead in 1943 (9/11)

The official theory was that in order to deploy a smoke marker at the site of the oil slick, one crew member opened the rear hatch. He then slipped and, dangling from the hatch, shouted for assistance. When the other crew member attempted rescue, they both fell (10/11)

L-8 was quickly repaired and returned to service following the incident. After the war, the airship was sold back to the Goodyear company and renamed America, flying over sporting events as part of Goodyear's blimp fleet until it was retired in 1982 (11/11)