Historical Society Lakehurst New Jersey Patch

Hangar No. 1 at Lakehurst is 966 feet long, 350 feet wide and 224 feet high, and USS Shenandoah (ZR-1) was built inside it from 1922 to 1923. That one building held the Navy's rigid airship program for years. USS Los Angeles (ZR-3) moved in alongside her in 1924. On May 6, 1937, the German airship Hindenburg was coming in to land at that same hangar when it burned. The Navy Lakehurst Historical Society keeps that record, and this patch carries the society's name.

The hangar was completed in 1921 by the Lord Construction Company, with steel trusses put up by Bethlehem Steel. Besides Shenandoah and Los Angeles, it served USS Akron, USS Macon and the Graf Zeppelin, and the Hindenburg used it on its transatlantic flights. In the 1930s the Navy's big rigids were the fleet's eyes, and many of them called Lakehurst home. Hangar No. 1 was added to the National Register of Historic Places and named a National Historic Landmark on May 23, 1968. Today it stands at Naval Air Engineering Station Lakehurst, part of Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, and holds a mock aircraft carrier flight deck used for training.

This is a 3.5 inch round patch with a royal blue merrowed edge and a thin red ring inside it. NAVY LAKEHURST arches across the top of a light blue field in navy block letters, with HISTORICAL SOCIETY running along the bottom. A silver rigid airship with its small gondola crosses the upper field. Below it a gray and white swept-wing jet climbs on the left, and a white helicopter with orange-red trim flies on the right. At the bottom sits a hangar building with its tall arched door, the airship era, the jet age and the helicopter all on one field.

Lakehurst is one of the few Navy stations whose name most Americans know, and it is known for one evening in 1937. The people who served there know the rest of it: decades of airships, then blimps, then jets and helicopters, all tied to the same New Jersey pines. Indoor model fliers have used Hangar No. 1 since 1926. The historical society works to keep those stories in front of the public, from the hangar floor to the Hindenburg crash site. Wearing this patch puts a sailor or a family member in that long line.

It fits a shadow box next to a Lakehurst photo or a set of naval aviation patches, or the back of a vest worn to a reunion in Ocean County. It also makes a fine gift for anyone who toured Hangar No. 1 or had a father or grandfather stationed there. The back is sew-on, so stitch it down once and it stays put. One patch, the whole run of Lakehurst flight.