Mr. PATTERSON. I could not answer that question.

Senator DUFFY. You were over there, and so was I, and so were a number of others in the room. Don't you really think that was the most terrifying thing of all?

Mr. PATTERSON. Yes. It scared them. It made them madder, But at the end of the war the bombing kept up, as we all know; but it was done out of bombers rather than out of Zeppelins. It was done out of airplanes. They would fly over and would fly fast and turn around and fly back. All of us saw bombing going on at the front, and plenty of it; but it was not out of Zeppelins.

The CHAIRMAN. The fright came from the bombers or the bombs and not from the. Zeppelins?

Mr. PATTERSON. Yes, sir. It came from the bombs.

Representative DELANEY. May I say to the witness that I happened to make a visit to England shortly after the war and I found upon investigation and questioning many people that their greatest fear was the visits of the Zeppelins, and that they were more frightened by these visits than by anything else during the war.

The CHAIRMAN. Admiral Gherardi made this statement, after spending some time there as our naval attaché, that the German Army quickly discovered the Zeppelins were of no use over land; they could be fired by enemy planes, and they were given to the Navy. In addition to the 17 shot down and 24 lost in bad weather 4 were destroyed by fire.

Then he adds that

The record shows 40 percent of all the Zeppelins destroyed during the war were destroyed by weather conditions, which the German trained crews and the German officers could not overcome.

Would that be in harmony with your observations?

Mr. PATTERSON. Yes, sir; I think so.

May I add one thing to what I have said?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. PATTERSON. It is in regard to the work of the Zeppelins at the Battle of Jutland. The man who worked this up for me was a reporter and also an aviator. He had some war experience. Then, in addition to the Battle of Jutland, there is this book entitled "Some Famous Sea Fights", by Fitzhugh Green and Holloway Frost. I can tell you in a moment just what the two views are. Mr. Sloan Taylor says:

Believers in rigid airships declare the Battle of Jutland proved the value of the Zeppelins in naval warfare. Ten Zeppelins took part in the historic battle, but their work was greatly handicapped by weather conditions-fog and low-hanging cloud banks.

Despite the adverse weather, 2 of the 10 Zeppelins located the British ships, which had scattered after the battle. This information, wirelessed to Admiral Scheer by the L-11 and L-24, saved the Germans from risking an engagement with greatly superior forces.

A secret British report dated September 20, 1917, conceded the rigid airship an important place in naval warfare. The report said:

"From the results already given of instances, it will be seen how justified is the confidence felt by the German Navy in its airships when used in their proper sphere as the eyes of the fleet.

"It is no small achievement for their Zeppelins to have saved the high-seas fleet at the Battle of Jutland; to have saved their cruiser squadron on the Yarmouth raid, and to have been instrumental in sinking the Nottingham and Falmouth.

"Had the positions been reversed in the Jutland battle, and had we rigids to enable us to locate and annihilate the German high-seas fleet, can anyone deny the far-reaching effects it would have had in ending the war?

"There are many other striking, though perhaps less important, successes to the credit of Zeppelins at sea-even to the capture of the Norwegian bark Royal." It might be said that the day before the battle the Zeppelins were out looking for the British fleet but did not find it, the weather being bad and the visibility poor.

This book of Lieutenant Commander Green is called "Some Famous Sea Fights", and it includes a large number of the better known sea fights. The last one is Jutland. He said:

During the night Admiral Jellicoe had planned to close Horn Reef at daylight to cut off the retreat of the Germans, but when the time came he found his fleet scattered over a wide area. "It was obviously necessary, he wrote, "to concentrate the battle fleet and the destroyers before renewing action." Thus his last opportunity slipped away, for by 3 Scheer, with his fleet, except Flotilla II, well concentrated, was off Horn Reef with a clear line of retreat.

A succession of weird reports from the German airships gave a touch of comedy to the ending of the battle. British forces were reported in all directions in such a way as to completely confuse Admiral Scheer, and it is fortunate that he did not base his decisions upon them; in one message German battleships were reported as a British force, while in another a large British force was reported to the north of Denmark; the battle cruiser fleet was reported as consisting of 12 battleships.

So there is a difference of opinion about that.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any other questions?

Representative HARTER. In giving your opinion as to the desirability of the lighter-than-air ship did you take into consideration the place that it has in naval scouting and in operations with a fleet over

the sea?

Mr. PATTERSON. Yes, sir. I considered that one of the things it is supposed to do well. I concede quite readily that if you have five or ten million dollars to spend for a couple of airships and add them to the rest of the fleet, it will be so much gained; but if you have only five or ten million dollars to spend on naval aircraft I think it would be better spent on heavier than air, according to the experience of the late war. And we really have not had any since.

Representative HARTER. We have had successful airships flying commercially since the war, have we not?

Mr. PATTERSON. Well, I do not know about the commerical matters. You have heard Colonel Lindbergh tell about it. He knows a great deal more about it than I do.

Representative HARTER. You are familiar, if you are a student of air transportation at all, with the record of the Graf schedule and the regular scheduled trips it is making between Germany and South America.

Mr. PATTERSON. I have heard that it is making such trips.

Representative HARTER. And the cost of the modern airship the size of the Akron or the Macon is greatly less than the cost of a modern scout cruiser which sails on the surface of the ocean, is it not?

Mr. PATTERSON. Yes, sir.

Representative HARTER. What is the comparative area that the airship can cover in naval scouting as compared with the area that can be covered by a cruiser scout?

Mr. PATTERSON. Well, all of that is hypothetical. I can only tell you what I think. I think if you see a Zeppelin up in the air it is one of the most pitiful things in the air. I think if we had a carrier with some airplanes that they would spot the Zeppelin long before the

Zeppelin would spot anything else, and they would get there and get That is what I think. But that is only a thought. In the war that is what they did.

Representative HARTER. The cruising radius of an airship of the type of the Akron is much greater than the cruising radius of any airplane that we have today, is it not?

Mr. PATTERSON. Yes, sir; very much.

Representative HARTER. And is it not a fact that an airplane traveling at an altitude of, let us say, 2,000 to 4,500 feet, can see objects upon the surface much quicker than it can be seen by an airplane carrier or by other ships on the surface?

Mr. PATTERSON. I think otherwise, I don't know. I think you can see an airplane in the air, where it has that background, a great deal easier than you can pick out objects on the ground, especially if it is big enough.

Representative HARTER. Can you not also see further in an altitude above the surface?

Mr. PATTERSON. Yes; I think so.

Representative HARTER. That would be true of an airship, would

it not?

Mr. PATTERSON. Well, I don't know. I am just telling you what I think. I think you can see a Zeppelin farther than the Zeppelin can see you.

Representative HARTER. We have had testimony by naval experts on that subject. Now, in compiling your figures with reference to the German airships or Zeppelins utilized during the war did you have the shop records of the German Luftshiffbau Zeppelin Co. available to you?

Mr. PATTERSON. I do not think so.

Representative HARTER. Do you know that those records show that of the 115 ships put into commission by the Germans, built by that company during the war, that 21 of them were dismantled as being obsolete and did not break up in the air, but they were dismantled voluntarily; that 10 of them were surrendered to the allied governments after the armistice; that 7 of them were destroyed by crews in the hangars after the armistice-a total of 38 or 33.5 per cent of those built for military purposes during the war?

The shop records of that company show that the war losses were 36 ships, and 17 were shot down by the enemy, hit by incendiary projectiles, artillery or airplanes during raids or scouting trips and burnt in the air; 19 of them were heavily damaged by artillery, stranded or wrecked in landings on return from flight, mostly without injury to crew. That makes a total of 36 disposed of in that manner, or 31 percent.

Seven landed in neutral or enemy territory, due to exhaustion of fuel, ships dismantled, crews interned or imprisoned.

There were destroyed by enemy action in the hangars a total of 8 ships, or 7 percent.

Losses due to inexperience in operating-burnt in hangars, 5; damaged in ground or hangar maneuvers and dismantled, 6; damaged in landings, 12; burnt in the air, 1. That is a total of 24, or 21 per

cent.

Losses due to inexperience in engineering, 1 was lost by use of rubberized gas cells and 1 was lost by insufficient ventilation of the power cars, a total of 2, or 11⁄2 percent.

176296-33- -43

So a summary of the actual records of the German company shows that 38 ships were taken out of commission while intact, war losses resulted in a loss of 51; 24 were accounted for by inexperience in operating and 2 were accounted for by inexperience in engineering, or a total of 115.

Do you know whether those figures are correct or not?

Mr. PATTERSON. They are very much the same, except that I have a total of 100. They are approximately the same. What you said and what I said was not very far apart.

Senator DUFFY. You know about the use of helium in this country rather than hydrogen, which the Germans used, and the difference in inflammability?

Mr. PATTERSON. I think that ought to make it safer. They probably would not attempt to destroy them with machine guns, but would with bombs nowadays, if they used helium.

Representative DELANEY. You spoke about the vulnerability of the airship from an attack by a heavier-than-air ship. Do you know that a ship of the type of the Akron or Macon can carry airplanes in its belly?

Mr. PATTERSON. Yes; I know that.

Representative DELANEY. You know that they can also mount on the top of the ship six or seven machine guns to defend themselves from attack by a heavier-than-air machine?

Mr. PATTERSON. I understand so.

Representative DELANEY. You realize if they had these six or seven machine guns working against one or two machines the fact that the lighter-than-air craft had such a base would make it more effective against those ships than the heavier-than-air would be against the lighter-than-air?

Mr. PATTERSON. May I tell a little war story?
Representative DELANEY. Certainly.

Mr. PATTERSON. I spoke about my son-in-law who was a captain in the forty-second division. He was also an aviator, and had experience, and he could fly an airplane about. But he was not so during the war. The attack on the Champagne during the 15th of July, 1917, which was the last big German attack, was one in which they had the air to themselves almost, and they just came on over in

swarms.

Representative DELANEY. You mean the Germans came over in

swarms?

Mr. PATTERSON. Yes, sir. And they were machine gunning the troops and dropping bombs and everything else and making everybody very unhappy. But he had a scheme. He thought he would put up a barrage. He had four guns. He decided he would not try to shoot at any individual airplane, because he had found that that would not do the work; you could not hit them very well.

But he thought he would try to put up a barrage and make them fly through it, and he would have one gun set like this [illustrating], and another one like that, and another one like this, and another one still higher [indicating], and just keep sweeping back and forth when they would see the German attack planes come over flying low. He said they all flew through it two or three times and they did not bring down a one of them. He says he supposed they may have been hit in

the wings or the tail or somewhere else; but they did not hit the engine and did not kill an aviator. At any rate, they did not come down. Representative DELANEY. Are you familiar with the construction of these lighter-than-air ships?

Mr. PATTERSON. No, sir.

Representative DELANEY. You know that they are composed of various cells?

Mr. PATTERSON. Yes, sir.

Representative DELANEY. And one may be perforated and it would be almost as effective as though it had not been struck at all? In other words, she could go along with the remaining cells that were filled with helium?

Mr. PATTERSON. I understand so, if you have the helium gas. I understand that the helium gas will not burn up. But if you put a bomb into them it would make such a big hole that it would have to come down.

Representative DELANEY. The same thing is true as to a bomb being dispatched on to a battleship; the battleship would not last very long.

Mr. PATTERSON. I think an airplane would have a better chance to hit a battleship than one of those airships. I do not qualify as an expert.

Representative DELANEY. You came here to give us some informa

tion.

Mr. PATTERSON. You asked me to come.

I did not volunteer. Representative DELANEY. We wanted your information. Mr. PATTERSON. I am giving you all I have.

Colonel BRECKINRIDGE. The following information was furnished at the request of the committee, being transmitted with a letter from Mr. C. F. Marvin, Chief of the Weather Bureau, United States Department of Agriculture. It transmits copies hourly airways weather reports from 4:40 p.m. April 3 to 12:40 a.m. April 4, and of the weather reports broadcast from Arlington between 8:05 and 9:31 p.m., April 3; also an estimate of the cost of providing data for 4 country-wide weather maps instead of 2, as at present.

(The letter is as follows:)

Senator WILLIAM H. KING,

Chairman Joint Committee to Investigate Dirigible Disasters,
United States Senate.

MY DEAR SENATOR: As requested at the hearings of your committee on May 25, 1933, at which Mr. C. L. Mitchell, Dr. W. J. Humphreys, and Mr. W. R. Gregg, in the order named, gave testimony regarding meteorological conditions at the time of the Akron disaster, I am forwarding herewith copies of hourly airways weather reports from 4: 40 p.m. April 3 to 12: 40 a.m. April 4, and of the weather reports broadcast from Arlington between 8:05 and 9:31 p.m., April 3. These latter are in the Weather Bureau code, the first word in each line giving the name of the observing station.

A question was asked as to the cost of providing data for four country-wide weather maps instead of two as at present. Based on a careful study of this subject that was made in 1930, this cost is estimated to be about $300,000 per annum, in addition to the present cost.

Trusting that the foregoing gives the information desired by your committee,

I am,

Respectfully,

C. F. MARVIN, Chief of Bureau.