L-8 to the Golden Gate: A Naval Aviation Mystery

By Nick Wieman
HRNM Educator

The United States’ entry into the Second World War exposed the unprepared US Navy to the predations of both German and Japanese submarine warfare. Particularly in the early months of 1942 before the introduction of the convoy system, the Kriegsmarine picked off unprotected merchant ships on the Atlantic coast, while in the Pacific, Japanese submarines focused on naval vessels and light coastal bombardment. The US Navy’s solution to the problem of unrestricted submarine warfare was to fall back on technology once thought to be the future of transportation that had now become virtually obsolete.

Before World War II, the United States Navy was the only military to continue development of non-rigid airships for coastal convoy escort and anti-submarine warfare (ASW) purposes. Rigid airships—commonly called Zeppelins after their inventor, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin—have the balloon stretched over a solid internal frame. Once employed in a wide variety of roles, they had been rendered virtually obsolete by heavier-than-air craft (i.e., airplanes). High profile disasters like the loss of the Navy’s USS Akron (1933) and USS Macon (1935), and most famously the destruction of the German-made Hindenburg had exposed the limits of rigid airships for military purposes. Non-rigid airships (blimps), in which the shape of the balloon was maintained only by the internal pressure generated by the lifting gases, were cheaper to build/maintain and easier to transport between launch sites. During the war, the US Navy’s inventory of airships grew from 10 to almost 160, finding great success in the niche of convoy escort and ASW operations.

K-class airship escorting a merchant ship (USNI)

L-8 was one of five blimps requisitioned from the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, inducted into an umbrella “L-class,” as opposed to being purpose-built for the Navy. The L-class were training ships, lacking the range of the K-class ships accompanying convoys, refitted for light ASW duty. Before its disappearance, L-8 had already made its own small mark on naval history by delivering material to USS Hornet for modifying the B-25B Mitchell bombers that participated in the April 18, 1942, Doolittle Raid. L-8 was stationed with Airship Patrol Squadron 32 at Moffet Field outside San Francisco, California.

In the clear early morning of August 16, 1942, L-8 departed from Treasure Island on a routine antisubmarine patrol, meant to fly about 30 miles west to the Farallon Islands, bear north-northwest to Point Reyes, and then return to Moffet Field. L-8 was crewed by pilot Lieutenant Ernest DeWitt Cody and copilot Ensign Charles E. Adams, who was on his first flight as a commissioned officer. At 7:38 A.M., roughly an hour and a half into their patrol, LT Cody reported an oil slick four miles off the Farallon Islands, a possible sign of a submarine surfacing. At 7:50, Cody radioed that they would be taking the airship down to investigate; this would be the last confirmed contact made with the crew of L-8. On seeing the distant airship descend and circle the oil slick, fishing vessels and a pair of patrol boats cleared the area in case the airship dropped one of its depth charges. Rather than drop a depth charge, the airship dropped ballast and ascended, moving eastward as it did so.

L-8's aircrew, LT Ernest DeWitt Cody (left) and Ensign Charles E. Adams (dailytelegraph.com)

L-8 would reappear around 11:15 over Ocean Beach, about 7 miles south of the Golden Gate Bridge near an Army Coast Artillery Patrol Station, drifting at an unusually low altitude before slowly touching down and skidding along the sand. Two fishermen tried in vain to hold it down by its dangling tie lines, but they were unable to get it weighted down before it collided with the sloping cliffs, dislodging a depth charge (which did not detonate) and relieving enough weight to get it airborne once more. The fishermen shouted at the gondola’s crew to try to get their attention but heard no response and didn’t see anyone in the gondola.

While L-8 had dropped significant ballast, it had also begun to leak helium due to a valve that had been jostled open in the struggle to get it grounded. It would steadily drop altitude. As it drifted south, passing over downtown San Francisco and crossing city limits into nearby Daly City, the weight of the gondola began to pull the balloon down, and it came to look like a sagging “v” shape as it descended. After scraping against roofs and telephone wires, L-8 gently “crashed” at 419 Bellevue Avenue, Daly City.

L-8 drifting over downtown San Francisco. Note the weight of the gondola dragging down the deflating balloon. (Wikipedia)

For those who first reached the airship, investigation of the gondola yielded a puzzling sight. There was no sign of either Lt. Cody or Ensign Adams in the gondola, and no damage beyond what was sustained in the landing. The gondola’s doors were latched open, and the engines had remained on until depleted of fuel. Whatever happened to the crew, it had to have happened when they reduced their speed to get a closer look at the supposed oil spill, suddenly enough that neither pilot had time to switch off the engines. The only thing missing from the gondola was a pair of life vests, but even this was not unusual, as the crew would have been required to wear their life vests over open ocean. When L-8 was returned to Treasure Island, Navy inspectors discovered that the gondola had never touched the water. It was as if the pilots had simply vanished into thin air.

L-8 crashed on Bellevue Avenue. Note the open hatch. (USNI)

The Navy’s investigation into the crew’s disappearance was not helped by contradictory eyewitness testimony. The Army station on Ocean Beach initially reported seeing the pilots bailing out over Ocean Beach, mistaking the two fishermen for the crew. A golfer at the Olympic Club golf course reported seeing a single parachute descending from the airship before it had touched down on Ocean Beach, although closer inspection showed the parachutes remained in the gondola. Finally, a horseback rider on the beach reported seeing three individuals in the gondola as it descended, a surprising claim considering that only Cody and Adams were aboard.

After two days of fruitless searching for any trace of the pilots, the Navy called off the search and declared them MIA; they would be declared dead in 1943. Investigation into the disappearance could only conclude that there was no evidence of foul play and no reason to suspect any wrongdoing on the part of the pilots. The explanation proffered by the Navy was that while dropping flares out of the hatch to mark the oil slick, one of the pilots may have slipped and been hanging onto the edge of the gondola. When the other pilot attempted to haul him up, they both fell into the sea. The sudden lightening of the gondola would have caused the blimp to ascend rapidly. One other remote possibility was that the crew was taken prisoner aboard the hypothetical Japanese submarine and murdered in custody. Other possibilities offered were more speculative or outlandish: a murder attempt gone awry, a murder-suicide, defection to Japan, and even aliens!

Former L-8 gondola in service with Goodyear as America (airships.net)

The remainder of L-8’s service would be otherwise uneventful. After repairs to the gondola and attachment to a new balloon, L-8 returned to service in early September 1942 and would continue as a coastal antisubmarine patrol craft for the remainder of the war. It was sold back to Goodyear, repainted into Goodyear livery, and went into “service” as America, part of Goodyear’s iconic airship fleet flying over sporting events nationwide, flying between 1968 and 1982. Finally, the gondola was repainted into its wartime L-8 livery and donated to the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida.

L-8 gondola on display at the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, FL (NHHC)

Sources:
Irwin Ross. “The Mystery of the L-8” U.S. Naval Institute. 1 March 1970
Ruffin, Steven A. Flights of No Return: Aviation History’s Most Infamous One-Way Tickets to Immortality. Voyageur Press. 2015.
Vaeth, J. Gordon. Blimps & U-Boats. Annapolis, Maryland: U.S. Naval Institute Press. 1992