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Many Akron recruits stationed in California
By Mark J. Price
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Monday, Nov 10, 2008
It is hard to imagine today's corporate symbols as yesterday's birds of war.
Yet, there was a time when graceful airships carried 50-caliber machine guns, dropped 325-pound explosives and struck fear in the hearts of enemies.
The U.S. Navy needed blimps to patrol the coasts in World War II. Uncle Sam turned to Akron's rubber factories in 1942 to protect the nation.
''I went down and joined the Navy,'' recalled Jim Harris, 85, of Barberton. ''They called my name out and they said 'Harris, step forward.' I stepped forward, and they said, 'You're going to Moffett Field, Calif.' ''
Harris didn't understand the reason until recruiters pointed out a special skill on his application: He had worked at Firestone as a barrage balloon inspector.
The Navy was assembling a special team of Akron laborers with lighter-than-air experience. Many had built barrage balloons, which were helium-filled bags anchored by cables meant to ensnare low-flying airplanes.
''They wanted the guys that worked in the rubber shops,'' recalled Atwater resident Bob Fassnacht, 86, who had built balloons at General Tire.
''We didn't go through a whole lot of training. They put us to work pretty fast.''
John Lilley, 85, of Kent, another former balloon builder at General, enlisted in the Navy with his buddy Marvin Draper. They interviewed at Goodyear Aircraft, took an exam and passed a physical.
''They asked if we wanted to go to Lakehurst, N.J., or Moffett Field, Calif.,'' Lilley recalled. ''We had always wanted to go to California.''
They boarded a westbound train and arrived three days later at the naval air station on the southern rim of San Francisco Bay. The Ohio men marveled at the sunshine, mountains and Spanish architecture
''It was such a beautiful place to go,'' Fassnacht said. ''The people out there were very, very friendly.''
''Especially the girls,'' Lilley said.
The men were assigned to the Assembly & Repair Department at Moffett Field. Their duties were to assemble, repair and service about 60 Navy airships stationed on the West Coast.
California residents were concerned that Japanese submarines might be lurking off the coast. Equipped with machine guns and 325-pound depth charges, naval blimps relentlessly patrolled the shoreline.
''People were actually scared of that blimp up there because they knew it had depth charges on it,'' Fassnacht said.
Goodyear sent 154 airships to the Navy during the war. Five of the company's commercial ships were converted for military use.
'The Goodyear Navy'
Of the 80 men in Assembly & Repair, about 70 were from Akron. They quickly were dubbed ''the Goodyear Navy'' and their barracks became known as ''the Akron Hotel.''
Lt. j.g. Robert ''Shaky'' Davis, a no-nonsense sailor who had survived the 1935 crash of the Akron-made USS Macon, supervised the new recruits. They were plenty scared of him.
The men went through two weeks of boot camp and drills.
''They issued us 1903 Springfield rifles,'' Lilley said. ''No ammunition.''
''They couldn't trust us,'' Harris said with a laugh.
The men worked inside Moffett's giant airship hangar, which measured 1,133 feet long, 308 feet wide and 198 feet high. Its design was based on the Akron Airdock, although it was 10 feet shorter.
''I climbed up to the top of the hangar, went out the hole and I stood up there on top of the roof,'' Fassnacht said. ''I looked around and I clicked photos.''
Before building an airship, the men had to sweep the deck. About 50 or 60 of them whisked away at the floor of the hangar. Then they spread canvases and started sweeping all over again.
They laid out the envelope of an airship and inflated it with helium. The men wore canvas shoes so they wouldn't puncture the three-ply rubberized fabric.
''You'd go inside that envelope while they got air in it,'' Fassnacht said. ''Somebody would be walking around on the outside. We'd be looking through it. Light would come through a hole in that bag. You could talk through the material.''
The men held the airship down with a giant net and adjusted sandbags to make the blimp rise high enough to attach the gondola below it.
They used 65-foot ladders to repair and paint the lower part of the blimp. When they needed to work on the upper part of the airship, they used monorail cranes at the top of the hangar.
''It was scary when you were looking down,'' said Harris, a former crane operator. ''Today, I wouldn't do it.''
The crane lowered a cable to the floor and pulled up a co-worker in a wooden bosun's chair. A leather belt served as a safety harness as the repairman skittered around the top of the airship 150 feet off the ground.
''When we were working, we had to keep that chair underneath us or we would have flipped out,'' Fassnacht said.
Swing time
Some of the braver men enjoyed swinging on the cable by holding the nose of the airship as the line played out. They let go and swooped beneath the crane.
''We could swing from here to two houses down,'' Fassnacht said. ''Of course, we only did this on Sundays, when Shaky Davis wasn't around.''
Another source of amusement was the helium, which temporarily altered vocal cords when inhaled. High-pitched voices were guaranteed to produce laughter among the guys.
''We had one chief there who had a very low voice when he talked,'' Lilley said. ''So we got him to come up there. We had a sleeve that we could let him take a puff of it. Squeak squeak.''
On weekends, the men piled into a liberty car and headed to San Jose. Those were fun times.
''Alcohol never touched my lips,'' he said. ''I used a funnel.''
Many of the Akron fellows were fortunate enough to meet California girls and get married. ''The Battle of San Jose,'' Harris said with a laugh. ''There were nine women to every man.''
Hard work
The sailors played hard, but they worked harder. When they first arrived at Moffett, the men needed two weeks to disassemble a ship. Eventually, they could tear one down, inspect it and put it back up in three days.
''We were a working bunch of fools,'' Fassnacht said. ''We were very serious about our jobs.''
World War II was a lot different than wars today, Harris said. ''It took effort from everyone in the country, and everyone was together in defeating the enemy,'' he said.
Harris left Moffett Field in 1943 and went to work on a ship repair unit in Guam. He remained in the Pacific until the war ended. Lilley and Fassnacht stayed at Moffett until 1946.
''I think when we went in, most of us did not know doodly about the Navy,'' Lilley said. ''We learned a great deal while we were there.''
Assembly & Repair veterans held big reunions over the years, but their numbers thinned as the decades passed. At its peak, the Akron-area group had 30 members who regularly attended get-togethers. Now only five people gather for breakfast on the second Wednesday of each month.
Although more than 65 years have passed, the men can't seem to shake an old habit.
Every time a Goodyear blimp passes overhead, they always stop to look.
Mark J. Price is a Beacon Journal copy editor. He can be reached at 330-996-3850 or send e-mail to mjprice@thebeaconjournal.com.
Get the full article here.
Comments
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Barberton, OH
Posted 08:21 AM, 11/10/2008
Loved this. Always room for more airship stories around here. :)
Posted 01:33 PM, 11/10/2008
I love this blimp story Mark. I love learning the history of Akron but blimps and the old rubber companies are my favorites. My dad worked at a rubber company until it closed in the late 60's. Any info on the American Hard Rubber Company I think they closed 40 years ago this year.
