Photo of the Week

Continuing with the photos that I downloaded from the National Archives website last week, here are a couple of more great aerial photos. Last week it was six Boeing B-17 airplanes flying over the Culebra Cut. This week is a real treat that hardly anyone today has seen which is the U.S. Navy rigid airship Los Angeles or ZR-3 flying over the Culebra Cut on February 28, 1928. This airship was built in 1923-1924 by the Zeppelin company in Friedrichshafen, Germany as war reparation. It flew over the Atlantic ocean from Germany and landed in the United States at Lakehurst, New Jersey on October 15, 1924. The Atlantic would not be crossed nonstop by air again until Charles Lindbergh's flight in May 1927.

The most fascinating things about these photos is what is below. The Canal has only been open for 13 years and there are still remnants of some of the old construction towns on the west bank of the Canal, You can see the roads and buildings which at on time were the towns of Culebra and Empire now military bases of Camp Gaillard and Camp at Empire. I will show more of these camps next week. I don't know the name of the Ocean Liner, but that is a big ship to transit the Canal in those days. The photo below shows the Los Angeles moments after the top photo was taken when she flew over Gold and Contractor's Hill

More great photos from the Nation Archives in the next few weeks.