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In its early days, RNAS Pulham was home to small, non-rigid airships. These were largely used to patrol over the North Sea, looking for German U-boats and for floating mines. A crew of ten would man the airship from a control car slung underneath the envelope. Defences against enemy aircraft included a Lewis gun mounted on top of the envelope, with other guns being deployed from the control car’s windows, whilst up to 360Kg of bombs could be carried in racks below the control car.
As airship development continued, larger rigid airships were designed. In 1917, Pulham’s first rigid airship, the HMA No. 9 arrived. The structure of these airships was more robust than the non-rigids, and they were considerably bigger: the R33 and R34 were both 643 feet long.
Probably the most famous airships associated with Pulham were:
The R34, which completed the first ever two-way flight between mainland Europe and mainland USA – the return journey ended at Pulham. The flight, captained by Major G.H. Scott, started from East Fortune, Edinburgh and reached Mineola New York after a journey of 3130 miles which took 108 hours 12 minutes. The return journey took 75 hours and 2 minutes, reaching Pulham on Sunday 13 July 1919. A great crowd of press and photographers, plus local residents and the station band, turned out to welcome the R34 home, (Note: technically Alcock & Brown’s Vicker’s biplane flight managed the crossing before the R34 but their flight ended prematurely in Ireland.)
The Italian-built airship Norge, piloted by Colonel Umberto Nobile, which stayed overnight at Pulham en route to making the first crossing of the North Pole on 9 May 1926. This was the second time this journey had been made; an earlier Italian-built semi-rigid airship, the SR-1, had followed the same route from Italy to Norfolk during WWI. The Norge expedition was commanded by Roald Amundsen, conqueror of the South Pole, and who may well have been the first to reach the North Pole too, as there are serious doubts regarding whether either Cmdr Robert Peary, who claimed to have reached the Pole on foot in 1909, or Lt-Cmdr Richard Byrd, who claimed to have flown to the Pole and back a few days prior to the Norge, actually ever reached 90 degrees North. The Norge spent the rest of her life at the Pulham Air Station. Special precautions had to be taken because she looked like a German Zeppelin and there were fears she may have been shot down.
The sister of the R34 was the R33, which arrived in Pulham in March 1919. The construction sheds needed to be 700 feet long by 150 feet wide and 100 feet tall to house her. The airship contained 19 gas bags totalling 1,950,000 cubic feet of hydrogen giving a lifting capability of 26 tons. However, 15½ tons was taken up for ballast. At one point the R33 was used to fly over London and advertise the Government’s Victory bonds. The R33 is probably best-known for being torn from its mast in gale-force winds in April 1925, and drifting to Holland before it could be turned back, returning nearly two days later, to an eager national press awaiting its safe landing at Pulham.
The R26 is noted because it was the airship that accepted the surrender of German U-boats in July 1918. The R36, which was a civilian craft with accommodation for up to 50 passengers, was used by the police to direct traffic at Ascot Races, in order to demonstrate the non-military usefulness of airships!
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