THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 17, 1995 TAG: 9505170097
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ANNE SAITA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WEEKSVILLE, N.C. LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines
When Stephen Chalker answered a newspaper advertisement for a production planner, he had no idea what he'd be working on.
When his new employer told him the job was for TCOM Limited Partnership and involved high-tech balloons called aerostats, Chalker still didn't know what he'd be doing.
Eleven years later, Chalker has learned a great deal about the blimp-like devices. Now, he's working on making sure others understand the importance of rural Weeksville in the lighter-than-air airship industry.
On Thursday, from 5 to 7 p.m., the Museum of the Albemarle in Elizabeth City will formally open a small exhibit on the Weeksville lighter-than-air facility.
The display is called ``The Pasquotank Patrol,'' named after the newspaper that circulated in the military city almost a half-century ago. Capt. Ralph McFarland, who once piloted the Navy's K-ships, will speak on the airship's role in anti-submarine patrols off the North Carolina coast.
Most of the photographs and text in the 8-foot-tall display come from Chalker's private collection.
Museum officials and members of the Elizabeth City Area Chamber of Commerce's military history committee hope the exhibit will give the blimp base a lift.
Two hangars - one used as a furniture factory, the other among the world's biggest wooden structures - stand as monuments to a large naval base that helped put this Pasquotank County community on military maps during the 1940s and '50s.
Boaters coming in off the Albemarle Sound, or motorists traveling along state Route 34, can't miss the two towering structures that dwarf even the tallest oaks.
Most would be surprised to learn that 822 acres of primarily farmland once were home to up to 700 aircraft, including 10 blimps; 700 vehicles; and more than 850 military personnel. There was a gymnasium, bowling alley, hospital and even a jail.
Today, the area is home to TCOM's 72-meter long, sausage-shaped aerostats and the world's largest airship, Westinghouse Airship Inc.'s 222-foot-long Sentinel 1000. Commercial airships, such as the Budweiser blimp, owned by Florida-based Airship International Ltd., stop in Weeksville for regular maintenance.
``I still believe that a lot of times, outsiders who come into the area appreciate it more,'' Chalker said. ``The people around here appreciate it. But because they are so used to it, it's not in the forthright.''
Chalker still gets calls and visits from people who once worked at the base during its heyday. Commissioned in 1942, the Weeksville ``city'' remained open for 15 years and three months as a lighter-than-air manufacturing facility.
During that time, large airships patrolled for German U-boats offshore. The Weeksville air crews sometimes came under fire, but from an unlikely source - moonshiners who had had their secret stills discovered by the blimps' surveillance devices.
It is offbeat details such as these that Chalker has collected. Typically, he'll come to work early and ``send out a couple of letters.''
The missives go to people interested in military history - and the Weeksville Naval Air Base in particular. Chalker has compiled a volume of newspaper clippings. Another folder holds correspondence from people who once lived or worked at the airship factory.
Chalker seems impeccably organized - a trait he credits to his father, whose work as the historian for his Air Force bombing group was made into a book several years ago.
Son of a World War II veteran and a mother ancestrally rooted in Gettysburg, Pa., Chalker said he's always been a bit of a history buff.
The museum exhibit, and the exposure it will give to tourists and townspeople, has been a big goal for Chalker and the other committee members.
But there is plenty more to be told, he said.
``Frankly, I don't know where I'm going with it,'' Chalker said this week. ``I've had people suggest to me I write a book, and I've looked into doing that.
``At the very least, I have become the source for information on the Weeksville Naval Air Station. And that, in itself, has been interesting.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
DREW C. WILSON/Staff
Stephen Chalker's personal photograph collection and his text are
the heart of an exhibit on the blimp base at Weeksville, N.C. Its
airships patrolled for German subs, but often found local
moonshiners.
by CNB