At the beginning of World War II, Naval Air Station Lakehurst, established in 1921, was the only active lighter-than-air (LTA) naval air station operated by the US Navy. In 1940, the US Navy proposed to the US Congress the development of a lighter-than-air station program for anti-submarine patrols of the coast and harbors. This program proposed, in addition to the expansion at Lakehurst and the reestablishment of Naval Air Station Moffett Field as a naval LTA station, the construction of new stations in the Boston, Cape May, Cape Hatteras, southern Florida, southern Georgia, Louisiana, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Puget Sound, and Hitchcock near Galveston, Texas areas. The original contract included a steel hangar, long, wide and high, helium storage and service, barracks for 228 men, a power plant, landing mat, and a mobile mooring mast. In June 1941, shortly before Congress completed action on the Navy's proposed LTA program, work began at NAS Lakehurst on a project which included the construction of two airship hangars.
