Click logo below to support the NAA:
Archive: Hot News
This section contains archived information from the NAA Hot News section.
We've Moved!
The NAA site is now being hosted by the Observer & Eccentric Newspapers, in Livonia, MI. We now have unlimited space for graphics and other goodies, and the site will begin to grow again. Please stop back regularly to see what we've added!
Air Medals
Two letters of commendation for crewmen who flew ferry flights to North Africa in 1944 have been upgraded to Air Medals. They will be presented at the 2000 Reunion.
New items added to the store!
We now are an Amazon.com Associate!
U.S. Navy Blimp Mail
A page on U.S. Navy Blimp mail, courtesy of Cheryl Ganz
Obituaries (provided by John Kane)
We are saddened to report the deaths of three of our members during the month of September 1997. On 16 September in Mountain View, CA., Chief Warrant Officer George Weldy, USN Ret. died after a long career in the US Navy and in the civilian community. He is survived by his spouse, Laura. On 17 September in San Leandro, CA, Lt. Donald Venton died. Lt. Venton served as a pilot in Airship Squadrons during the war years. He is survived by his spouse, Mary. On 29 September in Litchfield Park, AZ, Capt. George Watson died after a long and illustrious career in the US Navy and in other Federal service. He is survived by his spouse, Clytie.
The three surviving widows have been offered Honorary Membership in the Naval Airship Association.
George Watson
Captain Watson graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1922 and served in a number of fleet and shore commands. He was the sole surviving officer of the days of the Navy's rigid airships, being a member of the crew of the USS Los Angeles for 10 years. He also served as the Commanding Officer of Airship Squadron 32 ( at Moffett Field, CA ) and of Airship Squadron 42 ( at Recife, Brazil ), as Commanding Officer of Naval Air Station, Lakehurst, NJ and of Naval Air Station, Moffett Field. He also served as Chief of Naval Airship Training and Experimentation.
George Weldy
Chief Warrant Officer George Weldy was an Aviation Machinist Mate in the crew complement of both the USS Akron and the USS Macon. Although he flew as a crewmember in both ships during the early 1930s he did not make either of those rigid airship's last flights where both were lost at sea - the Akron in 1933 off the New Jersey coast and the Macon off the Southern California coast in 1935. The loss of the Akron and the Macon ended the U.S. Navy's operations with rigid airships.
Donald Venton
Lt. Donald Venton was a member of LTA Class 12-43 getting his commission and wings in December of 1943. He was then assigned to duty with Airship Squadron 11 at NAS So. Weymouth, MA during 1944 and 1945. After the war he continued in service with the Naval Reserve. He was an ardent collector of LTA memorabilia.
With the passing of Capt. Watson and Chief Warrant Officer Weldy there remains only six surviving crewmen of the rigid days - all of whom were enlisted men at the time. They are: William A. Baker of Lakewood, NJ: Eugene Calande of Mountain View, CA; William H. Clark of Hemet, CA; William F. Hook of Raymond, WA; John Iannacone of Lakewood, NJ and John Lust of Butler, NJ., all are members of the NAA. Iannacone and Hook served aboard USS Los Angeles. Baker, Calande and Clark served aboard the USS Macon. Lust served aboard the USS Akron. These men are all who remain of the crews who flew those magnificent "Sky Ships " in the 1930s.
Obituary -- Captain Herman Kenneth Rock, USN (Ret.)
From Times Union 7/26/98 Obituary
Herman Kenneth Rock, Capt USN
Died Friday 7/24/98
Barbara (Wife)Obituary -- Lieutenant Commander Dewey D. Crowder, USN (Ret.)
Virginia Beach, VA. Lcdr. Dewey D. Crowder,USN Ret. died in a nursing home here on 20 April 1998. Crowder was commissioned in July 1943 as an Aviator in the LTA service. He was a crewmember of the first blimps to cross the Atlantic for duty with ZP-14 in North Africa in 1944. He left the Navy in 1946 but was recalled in 1950 and served until his retirement in 1967. He is survived by his wife, Geraldine.
Obituary -- Lieutenant Commander Leo E. Kirby, USN (Ret.)
Commander John Hely reports that LCDR Leo E. Kirby died on 21 April 1998. He is survived by his wife, Elizabeth.
Obituary: EUGENE E. “PETE” CALANDE
Eugene E. “Pete” Calande, one of the last of the crewmen of the Navy dirigible program of the 1930s, died Saturday, June 17, in Mountain View, CA, where he had lived for 51 years with his wife Ruth. He was 88.
Calande retired from the Navy after 24 years of service in June of 1953. Several years later, he began work at Ames A eronautical Laboratory as a transonic wind tunnel mechanic and retired from that work in 1968.
He liked to say of the Ames assignment: “ The engineers would think of something and we’d try to make it happen.” He and his fellow workers “made it happen” on many vital projects during the Fifties and Sixties.
Born in 1911 in Norwich, Connecticut, he remembered seeing Navy ships and sailors from his earliest days, since New London, a submarine base, was nearby. It seemed the Navy would be his destiny; he enlisted in 1929 shortly after his graduation from Norwich Academy.
He received basic training in Newport, Rhode Island, before undergoing further extensive training at Great Lakes Naval Training Base. It was at Lakehurst, New Jersey, where he first boarded Navy dirigibles as an engine mechanic, serving on both the LOS ANGELES and the AKRON.
His flight log for April 3 and 4, 1933, showed this: “(Akron) Crashed at sea on the Atlantic coast off Barnegat Light. Three survivors…all the rest were lost.” Then in capital letters: “I WAS IN THE OFF SECTION.” He was in the third section of the crew, the one that wouldn’t fly that day. Seventy-three of his shipmates perished.
After the Akron crash, Calande was assigned sea duty on the heavy cruisers Tuscaloosa and San Francisco before World War II, at one point making a good will tour around South America , a trip of about six months. On cruisers such as the San Francisco, his work involved maintaining the seaplanes which served as the ship’s scouts.
The San Francisco was at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, but escaped damage. Pete Calande missed that disaster as well; he’d just been assigned to the brand-new Jacksonville Naval Air Station. He had become one of the youngest Chief Petty Officers in the Navy.
Calande was shifted to lighter-than-air duty shortly thereafter, and worked with the blimps which patrolled the sea lanes off the Atlantic coast , watching for Nazi U-boats. He served as a Chief Aviation Machinists’s Mate aboard the USS Princeton off the coast of Korea during that conflict.
Pete Calande was a member of The Naval Airship Association. Of the hundreds of sailors who served aboard the great dirigibles, there are now only three who survive—John Iannacone, John Lust, and William Hook, according to the NAA. Pete was the last West Coast member of this select group.
He leaves his wife, Ruth; two daughters, Eugenia Calande of Capitola, CA, and Pat Goodwin of Walnut Creek, CA; six grandchildren, three great grandchildren and two great-great grandchildren. Private memorial services have been held.
Burkett, James R. 09/17/00: From an obit of 09/23/00, San Diego, CA Union-Tribune, sent by his wife, Alice E. Burkett, via John Kane. He retired from the Navy in ‘81 as a "master chief mechanic" after more than 20 yrs. service, in helicopters, ships and the blimp that was the highlight of his Navy career. In 1957 he was one of the 14-man crew of the record-breaking non-refueled endurance flight on the ZPG-2 airship, "Snowbird", piloted by CDR Jack Hunt. That flight, starting from So. Weymouth, MA, crossed the Atlantic twice, landing in Key West, FL 11 days and 12 minutes later. (This exceeded the then-existing record, by an earlier version of the ZPG-2, set in 1954, by slightly more than 3 days.)
Mrs. Burkett, already an Honorary Member, adds that her husband had enjoyed his years in the Navy and the NAA and "we miss him more than words can tell".
Gianascoli, Dominic 10/25/00: From his daughter, Mrs. Tina L. Nathan, of Chino Hills, CA, via John Kane. He died of leukemia in Chino Hills. The only biographical information available is that he was an AM3/c and had served as ground crewman, tractor driver, top mastman and rigger who handled the rudder on blimp flights – time and squadron unknown; has been a member of NAA since ‘98.
2002 Reunion
The 2002 Reunion has been cancelled.