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Decades later, a Cold War secret is revealed

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  • #16
    Navy Lakehurst blimp veterans recall Cold War submarine hunts.
    Lakehurst fleet stayed in service until 1961

    In all their days of shadowing Soviet submarines during the late 1950s, Robert Stefanski and his Navy airship crewmates laid eyes on their quarry just once — a sight, and a sea story, that the American and Russian sailors alike must have told over and over again.

    “We had been tracking this sub off Guantanamo Bay (the American base at the eastern end of Cuba) when they popped up,” said Stefanski, a Middletown resident and one of the last veterans of the Navy’s old blimp fleet at today’s Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst. “The first thing you saw was these guys piling out of the conning tower, and taking our picture. And I’m taking theirs.”

    That Cold War cat-and-mouse game was the last hurrah for the Navy’s lighter-than-air program, which shut down in 1961 — and was revived almost 50 years to the day later in October 2011, with the formal commissioning of the MZ-3A, a 180-foot-long version of a commercial airship design.

    The new ship is being used to test surveillance radars, cameras and other sensors — the military’s main interest, reflected in more ambitious intelligence-platform airships under development for the Army and Air Force. It’s a return to the last years of the Navy program, when 400-foot ZPG series blimps tracked submarines and carried air defense radar.

    “Those Russian subs were working all the way along the coast to Cuba,” said John Lopez of Toms River, who was a chief petty officer in the Lakehurst airship testing and development program.

    Navy blimps were an important part of antisubmarine warfare during World War II, keeping pressure on German submarines. As tensions grew between the United States and Soviet Union, bigger airships capable of staying offshore a day or two took up that mission.

    “We used to patrol between Cape Cod and the Carolinas,” Stefanski said. The Keansburg native came to Lakehurst as an aviation electronic technician with experience flying in Grumman S2F antisubmarine aircraft.

    Compared to the cramped back seats in those airplanes, flying in the ZPG ships was something else. In a massive “car” fuselage under the envelope they carried 18 or more crewmen who worked in watches, operating the APS-20 radar and sonar to detect submarines. The blimp had bunkrooms and a galley with seating. Two internal engines ran the propellers through drive shafts, so the crew could shut down one engine to do repairs in the air if they had to.


    NAVY ZPG-3W airships
    The last blimps to fly in a combat role for the Navy were the biggest nonrigid airships ever built. The ZPG-3W carried radar for the North American early warning network to guard against aircraft intrusions and attacks.
    Length: 404 feet
    Diameter: 85 feet
    Envelope volume: 1.5 million cubic feet
    Crew: 22 to 26
    Speed: 80 mph
    Endurance record: 58 hours flight time
    On the Web: Naval Airship Association at Naval Airship Association, Inc. - HOME
    Navy Lakehurst Historical Society at Navy Lakehurst Historical Society

    Navy Lakehurst blimp veterans recall Cold War submarine hunts | The Asbury Park Press NJ | APP.com
    Fortitude.....The strength to persist...The courage to endure.

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    • #17
      Originally posted by Tanker View Post
      remember the scene in "The Green Berets" when they capture the NVA General and wrap him in the rig and send the ballon up and the C-130 with the giant apendages grabs the rope and ballon? Thats how just from the opposite direction :)
      You mean like this...the end of James Bonds "Thunderball"

      Fortitude.....The strength to persist...The courage to endure.

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      • #18
        Originally posted by BB61Vet View Post
        @tanker - that was also an operational thing and not just a special effect for the movie. It was called "skyhook" and was used by the CIA mostly.
        Yes, well aware of it. I worked with 10th Group at Devens in the early 80's and asked a lot of questions. One question was: Why is every other song on the jukebox Barry Sadler's Ballad of the Green Berets? :)

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        • #19
          Originally posted by Dreadnought View Post
          You mean like this...the end of James Bonds "Thunderball"

          That's cool! A CG-17 no less! I was assigned to the $%# Special Ops Sqdrn at Hurlburt Field and got to see a lot of this stuff including hard working gunships :)

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          • #20
            USS Wisconsin Reply

            "Its great that these people, who spent their careers protecting the world, while under a vow of secrecy, can finally be acknowledged for their efforts..."

            ...and that they knew how to keep a secret.
            "This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski
            "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Lester Bangs

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            • #21
              Originally posted by S2 View Post
              ...and that they knew how to keep a secret.
              The other side of the coin is what the other side's professionals knew. In all honesty, I think we can think both side's spooks for giving honest answers to their political leaders seeking answers NOT to start a war.

              We know the Soviets evaluated us wrong during the 80s and we did them at the same time. That is, the Soviets believed we were going to attack them ... and they us. We were both wrong.

              And hence, allow both sides to seek a peace instead of war.

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              • #22
                The good news - there are still secrets being well-kept, no doubt. Consider the F-117 program, and the sheer magnitude of keeping such a major system hidden for as long as they did. We knew something was out there - the evidence was impossible to keep totally hidden, especially when one of them crashed - but those involved kept the faith.

                Same deal with the now declassified Constant Peg and the 4477th "Bandits."

                We can be assured programs of cosmic scope are ongoing, with dedicated personnel still keeping the secrets.

                My own spouse has clearances beyond anything I had, and during her stint at Lockheed Martin, she was part of both the F-22 and F-16 program. Her lips remain sealed, other than a cryptic "What they have would water your eyes."

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                • #23
                  "What they have would water your eyes."
                  Maybe I'll live long enough to see the declassified pictures...

                  That "Aurora" aircaft would be really cool to get a close up look at.
                  sigpic"If your plan is for one year, plant rice. If your plan is for ten years, plant trees.
                  If your plan is for one hundred years, educate children."

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                  • #24
                    Originally posted by Chogy View Post
                    Consider the F-117 program, and the sheer magnitude of keeping such a major system hidden for as long as they did. We knew something was out there - the evidence was impossible to keep totally hidden
                    The funky thing in comparison was that its German analogue program (MBB's Lampyridae / MRMF project) remained completely hidden. Until revealed to the USAF in 1987 and finally sort of acknowledged in 1995. Pity it was cancelled around the same time as the somewhat less secret German SRBM program in order to acquiesce certain NATO members.

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