Sea-going Airship Base PATOKA - NNS Apprentice Organizations

PATOKA...
...A Newport News Shipbuilding
'TALL SHIP'
She started out life as one of a
number of near-identical tankers
mass-produced during World War I.
But a few years later she became
the only tender ever created to serve
as a mobile base for the US Navy's
rigid,
lighter-than-airships
[also
called dirigibles].
Fitted with a mooring mast that
towered 177 feet above the vessel's
waterline, the PATOKA was still
dwarfed by the Navy's airships
during maneuvers with the fleet.
Between the end of World War I and
the early 1930s, the US Navy
experimented with dirigibles to serve
as long range airborne scouts for
forces afloat. When several disasters
effectively ended the era of the rigid
airship, and aircraft carriers were
introduced; PATOKA was initially left
without a mission.
Laid up for a few years, she was recommissioned in 1939 and put to
good use throughout World War II.
PATOKA was the first of eight similar vessels built by Newport News Shipbuilding
(NNS) for the U.S. Shipping Board (USSB). Ordered in 1918, just before World
War I ended, they were assigned sequential NNS hull numbers [248 through
255]. The PATOKA was named for a river in southwest Indiana. The other seven
tankers also received names of rivers located in other states.
The keel for NNS Hull 248 was laid in mid-December 1918. Launched in late July
of the following year, her sponsor was Miss Margaret Cornbrook, daughter of the
shipyard's superintendent for hull construction. Sea trials took place about a
month later, and the PATOKA was delivered to the USSB on September 3, 1919,
less than eleven months after her construction contract was issued.
Just under 478 feet in length, her displacement was 16,850 tons. She had three
coal-fired boilers and a reciprocating steam engine that could produce a
maximum speed of 10.5 knots when driving her single propeller.
By the time she was delivered, World War I
had ended and the US Shipping Board had a
huge surplus of ships on their hands.
PATOKA and her sister ships were turned
over to US Navy to help service a fleet
transitioning from coal to oil. On October 3,
1919, she was commissioned at the Norfolk
Navy Yard as the USS PATOKA (AO-9).
After a few uneventful years as a naval oiler,
she was selected in 1924 to become the
Navy's only sea-going tender for rigid
airships. In addition to a huge mooring mast,
the PATOKA was also modified to provide
accommodations in a deck house located
forward of the ship's funnel for airship crews
plus an embarked aviation support group.
Other changes including storage facilities for
aviation gasoline, helium, provisions and
spare parts for the Navy's dirigibles.
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When she returned to the fleet in August of 1924, for some reason PATOKA
retained her naval tanker designation of AO-9. On August 8, 1924, she moored a
rigid airship for the first time. As the following photo indicates, US Navy airships
were much longer than their waterborne tender.
Dirigibles were notoriously difficult to control, even at land-based mooring sites
where ground crews could use lines dropped from an approaching lighter-thanairship to help guide it safely to a mooring mast. High and gusty winds, changes
in wind direction and up or down drafts all contributed to making what were
normally difficult maneuvers downright dangerous.
Sailors had to be positioned atop
her mooring mast to help guide the
nose 'probe' of an approaching
dirigible into a complex, cone-like
device, a procedure much like that
utilized in present-day aerial
refueling operations for modern
aircraft.
Theirs was not an easy task. Any
pitch or roll of the PATOKA would
be magnified on their perch; almost
200 feet above the sea. Windy
conditions made their job and that
of the airship crew doubly difficult.
Heat and smoke from the ship's
funnel were further complications.
The Navy quickly discovered that such operations could only be safely
accomplished in sheltered waters. Nevertheless, the PATOKA provided a means
for supporting airship scouting operations; far from shore-based installations.
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The 'capture cone' used onboard
PATOKA was very similar to this
one that now resides in a museum
in Germany. It was salvaged after
the HINDENBERG disaster of
1937.
Once a connection was made, it
was still necessary for the airship's
crew to 'fly' their dirigible, even
while tethered to the mooring mast
of the PATOIKA. Otherwise, due to
the length of the Navy's airships, it
was possible for the tail to dip into
the water and possibly be
damaged, which happened once.
Whenever an airship was secured to its
floating airbase, its crew could exit via a
hatch near the nose. The rare image on the
right shows the USS SHENANDOAH's
skipper, Commander Zachary Lansdowne
emerging from that hatch just below the
nose. Access from the control car to the
hatch was provided by an internal gangway,
as illustrated below.
Also located in the nose area
were connections for electric
power and telephone, plus
hose fittings for the transfer of
aviation fuel, potable water and
helium from the ship.
Sadly, less than year after the SHENANDOAH was first successfully docked in
August of 1924, using the PATOKA's mooring mast, the airship was caught in a
violent storm over Ohio and ripped apart. Fourteen of her crew of twenty-five
perished in that accident, including her skipper.
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During the next few years, the PATOKA also moored and serviced two other
Navy dirigibles, the USS LOS ANGELES and USS AKRON. The LOS ANGELES
participated in the Navy's 1931 war games near the Panama Canal, scouting for
the canal's defensive forces. Her only base of operations then was the PATOKA.
The next year, AKRON treated the citizenry on both sides of Hampton Roads to
a display of her ability to operate in conjunction with PATOKA. Both airship and
support ship then journeyed to
the West Coast, where they
displayed their capabilities in
several West Coast harbors.
Ever mindful of the power of
public sentiment, the Navy
often put their airships on
display during the heyday of the
Navy's experiments with rigid
airships.
Public support soon faded, as two more of the dirigibles crashed with significant
loss of life and the development of long range patrol planes and aircraft carriers
made rigid airships obsolete. By April of 1933, there were no more lighter-thanairships left in the Navy for PATOKA to service. Three months later, she was
decommissioned at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. Then, World War II gave
her a reprieve, even before America entered that global conflict.
In 1940, a newly established US Navy Neutrality Patrol in the Atlantic needed a
logistical support ship. The PATOKA was selected, reclassified as a heavierthan-air seaplane tender with naval designation AV-6. Then, with mooring mast
in place, she steamed for the East Coast, arriving in Hampton Roads where she
was promptly deemed unsuitable as a seaplane tender unless $1 million was
spent to upgrade her capabilities. Instead, the Navy decided to return her to
tanker service at a more modest cost.
Accordingly, in early 1941, conversion of the PATOKA was undertaken to return
her to her original configuration as a tanker. Following two months of conversion
work, she returned to the fleet, once again designated as AO-9. Gone was her
mooring mast and the deckhouse added in 1924. Fitted with several antiaircraft
weapons, she looked like this when carrying full loads of fuel oil to American
naval vessels in the Atlantic and in Gulf of Mexico during the summer of 1941.
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She continued to serve in the Atlantic Theatre of Operations until mid-1943.
Having done her part in winning the Battle of the Atlantic, she was given a
lengthy overhaul at the Norfolk Navy Yard, where more modern and numerous
antiaircraft weapons and radar were installed.
Her next assignment was to serve as a minesweeper tender in the Pacific. Her
various facilities, originally created to support airships were considered ideal for
providing for the needs of small minesweepers and their crews. Retaining her
name, but reclassified once again, PATOKA was designated AG-125.
Bristling with weaponry, PATOKA steamed on her original, but still reliable NNSmanufactured engine from Hampton Roads to an advanced base in the Western
Pacific during the summer of 1945. But by the time she got there, the war was
over. Nevertheless, she did spend several months tending to minesweepers hard
at work clearing Japanese harbors during the occupation of Japan.
Returning to the West Coast, she was decommissioned on July 1, 1946 and
temporarily placed in a reserve fleet. A month later, PATOKA was declared
surplus and subsequently sold for scrap in 1948.
Oddly, her brief existence as a rigid
airship support vessel influenced, of all
things, a bridge in Texas. When the
Rainbow Bridge, which crosses over the
Neches River was designed in 1936, it
was required to be high enough for
PATOKA, the tallest ship in the Navy, to
be able to pass beneath it. The result
was this impressive structure.
But the PATOKA never sailed under it...
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