If you knew or served with this Sailor and have additional information or photos to support this Page, please leave a message for the Page Administrator(s) HERE.
Contact Info
Home Town Westerly, Rhode Island
Last Address HAROLD E. MACLELLAN LT COMM USN, RI DATE OF DEATH: 04/04/1933 BURIED AT: SECTION 6 SITE 9608 SH ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY
Date of Passing Apr 04, 1933
Location of Interment Arlington National Cemetery (VLM) - Arlington, Virginia
Harold E. MacLellan
Lieutenant Commander, United States Navy
USS AKRON (ZRS-4) AIRSHIP
NAVIGATOR'S BODY FOUND
Lieutenant Commander H. E. MacLellan, First Akron Victim Picked Up
ATLANTIC CITY, New Jersey, April 4, 1933 -- The body of Lieutenant Commander H. E. MacLellan, navigator and gunnery officer of the Akron was picked up tonight by Coast Guard cutter 213 about thirty miles off Atlantic City, and taken to the Coast Guard Base at Cape May, New Jersey. It was the first body recovered.
Commander MacLellan, who would have been 38 years old in July, lived in Westerly, Rhode Island, and was graduated from the Naval Academy in the Class of 1917. He was unmarried.
Instructions that all bodies recovered be sent to the Atlantic City Hospital for identification and to await disposition were issued by Lieutenant Commander W. W. Davies, senior medical officer at Lakehurst, and in conformity with these instructions, Commander MacLellan body was sent to the hospital later in the night.
Members of the crew of the cutter said they found considerable wreckage from the airship floating at the spot where the body was discovered.
Note, MacLellan is sometime misspelled and listed as McClellan.
Other Comments:
Only one of the officers of the Akron survived, Lt. Cdr. Herbert V. Wiley, Executive Officer. Rear Admiral William A. Moffett was also on board and killed.
Cdr. Frank C. McCord, Commanding Lt. Cdr. Herbert V. Wiley, Executive Officer Lt. Cdr. Harold E. MacLellan
Lt. George Calnan
Lt. Herbert M. Wescoat
Lt. Richard F. Cross, Jr.
Lt. (jg) Hammond J. Dugan
Lt. (jg) Charles F. Miller
Lt. (jg) Morgan Redfield
Lt. (jg) Wilfred Bushnell
Lt. (jg) Cyrus Clendening
Chief Machinist George C. Walsh
Chain of Command USS Akron, first of a class of two 6,500,000 cubic foot rigid airships, was built at Akron, Ohio. Commissioned in late October 1931, she spent virtually all of her short career on technical and operational development tasks, exploring the potential of the rigid airship as an Naval weapons system. During the remainder of 1931 and the early part of 1932, Akron made flights around the eastern United States and over the western Atlantic, including one trial of her capabilities as a scouting unit of the fleet. Damaged in a ground-handling accident at Lakehurst in late February 1932, she was again ready for flight two months later and began tests of her ability to operate an embarked unit of airplanes. These would greatly extend her reconnaissance reach and enhance her defenses against hostile air attack.
During May and June 1932, Akron was based on the West Coast, performing a successful search mission over the Pacific as part of a fleet exercise. However, a fatal accident early in this deployment, in which two Sailors lost their lives, provided further proof that handling large airships at their ground bases was an inherently risky proposition. Another accident, while leaving the hangar at Lakehurst in August, reinforced this conclusion.
Akron flew extensively during last half of 1932, further refining her airplane support and search capabilities. In January and March 1933 she twice went south, visiting Florida, Cuba and Panama to explore the base sites in the U.S. fleet's southern operating zone. While beginning a trip to the New England area, Akron encountered a violent storm over the New Jersey coast and, shortly after midnight on 4 April 1933, crashed tail-first into the sea. Only three of the seventy-six men on board survived this tragic accident. During the search for other possible survivors, the Navy non-rigid airship J-3 also crashed, killing two more men.
Soon after Akron's loss, Navy divers examined her wreckage, which was located about a hundred feet below the ocean surface east of Atlantic City, N.J. More recently, in June 2002, the research submarine NR-1 revisited the airship's crash site, where much of her collapsed framework remains visible on the Continental Shelf, nearly seventy years after the great dirigible went down.
Other Memories NAVIGATOR'S BODY FOUND Lieutenant Commander H. E. MacLellan, First Akron Victim Picked Up
ATLANTIC CITY, New Jersey, April 4, 1933 -- The body of Lieutenant Commander H. E. MacLellan, navigator and gunnery officer of the Akron was picked up tonight by Coast Guard cutter 213 about thirty miles off Atlantic City, and taken to the Coast Guard Base at Cape May, New Jersey. It was the first body recovered.
USS Patoka (AO-9) - USS Patoka (AO-9) was a fleet oiler made famous as a tender for the airship USS Shenandoah (ZR-1), USS Los Angeles (ZR-3) and USS Akron (ZRS-4).
