Airship identification, please!

M B Pearce · 4 March 2006, 06:34 AM

Can anyone help to identify the types of blimp and/or vessels on these two photographs, please?

Thanks,

Mary Brigid

Graeme · 4 March 2006, 08:16 AM

Mary

The airship in the first photo looks to be a Submarine Scout P airship. Six of these were built between January and June 1917; one was wrecked in March 1917, two were lost at sea in November and December 1917 and the three survivors were decommissioned in September 1919.

The airship in the second photo is a Submarine Scout Zero airship (as confirmed by the SSZ portion of the serial number). If the number is 6, then the airship was delivered in July 1917 and survived the war, being declared unserviceable in October 1919.

There's a stack of information at The Airship Heritage Trust website http://www.aht.ndirect.co.uk/airships/ss/index.html

Graeme

Moggie · 4 March 2006, 08:23 AM

Mary Brigid,

I took a look in "BATTLEBAGS; British AIrships Of The First World War, by Ces Mowthorpe" (ISBN 0-7509-0989-7) and found the following.

The first photograph appears to be a 'Costal' class airship. I would think it's number would be on the car but I can't make it out. Though I can see the air-scoop after the rear of the car.

The second photograph, if I'm reading it's number correctly, would be the SS-7, 'Sea Scout' class. If so it would have a BE.2c car. Arrived at Imbros-Kassandra 13 September 1915 as part of the Airship Expeditionary Force. Carried out artilleryy spotting for HMS Venerable and HMS Talbot 25/26 September 1915. Deleted Kassandra 19 April 1918, unserviceable.

I hope this is of some help. If you get a chance take a look at the book it has some very nice photographs.

Cool Breeze,
Moggie

Graeme · 4 March 2006, 12:43 PM

The more I look at it the more I think Moggie is right and the first photo is of a Coastal Class airship with a tri-loben envelope.

I still think the second picture is of an SSZ - at the moment I can't find a decent image of one to compare with the picture here.

Graeme

M B Pearce · 4 March 2006, 01:16 PM

Thanks a bunch, chaps !

Mary Brigid

Moggie · 4 March 2006, 02:12 PM

Graeme,

You may be right about the second photo, if what I took for a '7' is really a 'Z'. But the photos in the book, cited above, of the SSP and SSZ class airships show some kind of apparatus attached to the side of the airbag. I don't see that feature in the photo. Pehaps if someone could identify the ship the 'Battlebag' is alighted on we might have a better idea.

Cool Breeze,
Moggie

Moggie · 4 March 2006, 02:17 PM

Hmm, I've just now noticed the aircraft sitting on the forward deck. Pehaps this is a post-war photograph?

Cool Breeze,
Moggie

Graeme · 4 March 2006, 03:18 PM

Moggie

I think it's HMS Furious. Reference works make mention of wooden palisades
on the forward flight deck used as a wind-break with the "dazzle" camouflage of the hull being continued up onto the palisades.

Furious was re-commissioned on 15 March 1918 after her re-building as a carrier. She led the Tondern raid in July 1918 (seven Sopwith Camels). She served in the Baltic after the war but the layout of her flight decks proved unsatisfactory and she was laid up in late 1919.

Graeme

Moggie · 4 March 2006, 07:31 PM

Graeme,

You were correct. The airship is probably the SSZ.59.

http://www.steelnavy.com/LCPFuriousJB.htm

Cool Breeze,
Moggie

Graeme · 5 March 2006, 01:16 AM

Moggie

What a brilliant model! Not sure I'd have the patience to do something like that.

At least we're beginning to establish a timeline:

HMS Furious was re-comissioned in March 1918 and the SSZ.59 was delivered in April 1918. The carrier was laid up in late 1919 and the airship declared unserviceable in October of that year.

If we could only ID the plane on the foredeck we'd perhaps have a chance of saying where and when the photo was taken.

Graeme