To the editor:
We read with interest Roger Duncan’s story (WWF May 03) about the shooting down of the K-14 blimp near Mt. Desert Rock.
My father-in-law, Lt. Commander Harry R. Hoyt, was commanding officer of a U.S. Navy coastal patrol vessel (APC-94) during 1943 and 1944. His was the first vessel to spot the downed blimp and to arrive on the scene. When I discussed the article recently with him in Florida, Commander Hoyt, now 94 years old, described the K-14 as looking like a “giant teacup turned upside down.” The APC-94 requested permission to commence towing the wreckage towards port. The request, however, was denied; my father-in-law stating, “They didn’t want us messing around with it.” Instead, the Navy command preferred that a destroyer tow it in; not realizing, my father-in-law said, that a destroyer could not operate at the slow speeds needed to avoid ripping the fabric of the blimp.
As part of the inquiry, Commander Hoyt did have a meeting in Bar Harbor with Captain Moffett, who at the time was somewhat perturbed at my father-in-law for not being on his ship at the time when Captain Moffett summoned him. Commander Hoyt had walked up to town as the APC-94 lay alongside the pier at Bar Harbor.
The attached photo shows the wreckage of K-14. The vessel on the right side of the photo is identified on the image as the PATRIOT, also mentioned in the story.
Richard W. Kurtz
Cape Elizabeth