Charles E. Rosendahl
Charles Emery Rosendahl (born May 15, 1892 in Chicago , Illinois , † May 17, 1977 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania ) was an American Vice Admiral . He was one of the most important figures in the American naval airship industry.
Life
During the First World War he served on the American cruiser USS Huntington and was involved in the commissioning of the USS McKean .
Rosendahl served as landing officer and navigator on the first American rigid airship, the USS Shenandoah . In the wreck of the ship, he distinguished himself by the fact that he certainly brought the bow of the broken ship to Earth and from then on as a hero of the Shenandoah disaster went down in history. From 1931 to 1933 he was in command of the USS Akron until shortly before its loss and was also on board during the world voyage of LZ 127 “Graf Zeppelin” .
In the disaster of the LZ 129 "Hindenburg" on the evening of May 6, 1937 , he was the commander of the ground team in Lakehurst .
Work in the Second World War
During the Second World War , Rosendahl coordinated the airship activities of the US Navy, selected airship bases and established a training program. He commanded the heavy cruiser USS Minneapolis (CA-36) from August 1942 to April 1943 . On November 30, 1942, he took part in the Battle of Tassafaronga . The ship lost its bow due to a Japanese torpedo hit , but was able to return to Pearl Harbor . For this Rosendahl received the Navy Cross .
In the spring of 1943 he returned to Lakehurst to work on the training of airmen. There he was promoted to rear admiral.
Retirement age
In 1946 Rosendahl was dismissed from the service of the Navy. Before that, however, he contacted Hugo Eckener by sending Lieutenant Godon Vaeth to Lake Constance to discuss the continuation of airship construction, the whereabouts of German airship technology and the willingness to continue building airships with German help.
Rosendahl devoted a large part of his retirement to lighter-than-air technology. In 1955 he came back to Germany for the first time since World War II and was very impressed by the efforts of the Frankfurter Kreis to construct a new airship with the LZ 132 . In March 1959, the last trip of a K-type airship, the K-43, for the US Navy took place with Rosendahl on board. This type of airship carried the brunt of US airship operations during World War II.
In the 1960s, Rosendahl became a partner of Henry Irwin and Associates, a company planning to develop nuclear-powered cargo airships .
The History of Aviation Collection of the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) contains, among other things, the Rosendahl collection. It can be viewed under the name Vice Admiral Charles E. Rosendahl Lighter-than-Air Collection .
A street in Zeppelinheim has been named after him.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bleibler, J. (2002): The fifties and sixties - large airship projects in Germany and the USA, in: Meighörner, W. (Ed.): Airships that were never built, Friedrichshafen, p. 161
- ↑ Bleibler, J. (2002): The fifties and sixties - large airship projects in Germany and the USA, in: Meighörner, W. (Ed.): Airships that were never built, Friedrichshafen, p. 161
- ↑ The Sparrowhawk - from lighter-than-air to faster-than-sound; Moffett Field Historical Society newsletter; Vol VII No.4 Winter, 2000; page 5
- ↑ Bleibler, J. (2002): The fifties and sixties - large airship projects in Germany and the USA, in: Meighörner, W. (Ed.): Airships that were never built, Friedrichshafen, p. 165
- ↑ utdallas.edu: The University of Texas at Dallas - Vice Admiral Charles E. Rosendahl Collection ( September 5, 2012 memento in the Internet Archive ), accessed July 20, 2010.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Rosendahl, Charles E. |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Rosendahl, Charles Emery (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American Vice Admiral |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 15, 1892 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Chicago , Illinois |
| DATE OF DEATH | 17th May 1977 |
| Place of death | Philadelphia , Pennsylvania |