Ralph Upson, world's champion balloon pilot in the Goodyear entry, landed Monday morning near Elyria, Ohio, on his own choice rather than risk a crossing at Lake Erie.  His balloon passed four miles north of Hagerstown, Ind at 12:15 am Monday

The balloon piloted by J.S. McKibbon landed 3 miles northeast of Vanwert, Ohio, at 2:16 am Monday.  It had travelled for 32 hours, 46 min. and had traveled mor than 500 miles.

information concerning the Roma's capabilities, engine horsepower and top speed vary among sources, including historical accounts and news articles.

There is also conflicting information in historical accounts regarding the original reason the Italians built the Roma, even among news articles of the period.  Some say it was built by the Italian government for use in WW1, but was not completed in time.  Some say it was built for transportation purposes across the Atlantic, but soon determined to be too risky.  Some say it was built for the U.S. Navy who then turned it over to the U.S. Army Air Service, and some say it was built for the U.S. Army. 

There is also a range of dates among sources for the U.S. purchase of the Roma.  Late Dec. 1920 news articles showing a photo of King Vittorio Emanuele on board the Roma claim the U.S. had just purchased it. Then Feb. 1921 articles says the War Dept. announced on Feb. 2 that the Roma has been purchased by the U.S. Army.  Some authors who have written books on the history of the Roma say it was purchased after the U.S. Ambassador took the first test flight from Compagna, Italy in mid-March 1921.

Before the Roma was bought by the U.S, government, this flight with King Vittorio Emanuele III took place on Sep. 20, 1920.

PURCHASE OF THE ROMA
 

At the urging of Army Brigadier General William Mitchell, the Army authorized the purchase of the Roma in Mar. 1921** for $194k. 

It was the understanding of Maj. John H. Jouett, commander at Brooks Field, Texas, that the Roma would eventually be sent there for use in training, as soon as a larger hangar could be completed.  Officers there believed that the Roma would be filled with helium, to minimize dirigible accidents. A large helium plant was located in the oil fields of North Texas near Ft. Worth.

**According to Wings of Valor, Wings of Gold  by Amy W. Yarinske, 1998.

An article In Aerial Age Weekly of Feb. 14, 1921 states "Italy's giant airship Roma described in detail in Aerial Age recently, is to be purchased by the War Dept.  The cost to the American Government is 4M lire."

DALE MABRY IN BELGIUM AND ITALY

On Feb. 4, 1921, The Tampa Tribune announced that Dale would sail from New York to Italy on the 5th along with "Lt. Robert Reid" and 5 non-commissioned officers.  According to the 2-page roster of officers at Langley Field, there was no Robert Reid, nor any Reid.  It was 1st. Lt. WALTER J. REED** who was among those accompanying Dale.  (They were actually headed for Antwerp, Belgium.)

**Not the same Walter Reed of the Army hospital.  The namesake of the hospital Walter Reed was a U.S. Army physician born in 1851.

The Langley Field roster of officers shows Captain Dale Mabry and Lt. Walter J Reed on Detached Service at at Antwerp, Belgium since Feb. 1.

DALE MABRY IN ITALY

Hundreds of newspapers across the country published this photo and the incorrect title claiming the men would be flying the ship back to the U.S.

The Army entourage arrived in Antwerp, Belgium, on Feb. 26, 1921 and proceeded to Rome to take charge of the Roma.

ROMA'S FIRST TEST FLIGHT WITH U.S. AMBASSADOR - MAR. 3, 1921
 

U.S. Ambassador to Italy, Robert Underwood Johnson, arrived at Roma's hangar in Campagna, Italy, on Mar. 3, 1921.  As he arrived, the ground crew of 100 soldiers and workmen had already guided the Roma from its berth and held fast to the ropes holding her down.

The Order of the Crown of Italy (Ordine della Corona d'Italia or OCI) was founded as a national order in 1868 by King Vittorio Emanuele II, to commemorate the unification of Italy in 1861.  It was awarded in five degrees for civilian and military merit. Today the Order of the Crown has been replaced by the Order of Merit of Savoy and is still conferred on new knights by the current disputed head of the house, Emanuele Filiberto, Prince of Venice.  

THE VOYAGE TO LANGLEY FIELD, VA.

For Roma’s transfer to the USA, the American officers initially considered making a direct transatlantic crossing.  But the possibility of summer storms or even hurricanes on the Atlantic voyage was too high to risk so they kept the decision to dismantle the airship and transport it by sea to the Port of New York.  It took two months to dismantle the ROMA and pack the sections in huge crates, which were put aboard the freighter MARS at Genoa for the long journey to Langley Field.The semi-rigid Roma was dismantled and shipped in crates from Genoa, Italy, on the naval transport Mars on May 28, 1921.

With the outer skin of the keel not yet in place, the passenger cabin is seen  here.  The aluminum struts arranged in a V-shape comprised the skeleton of the keel, which ran the length of the ship. It also served as an rigid support for each of the 6 engines and the tail assembly.

The Roma was delivered to Langley with 400 H.P. Ansaldo San Giorgio engines, seen here after removal from the Roma.

Engineers in the airship shed at Langley in the late summer of 1921 are dwarfed by Roma's giant multi-plane box-kite tail assembly.   The tail unit consisted of three superimposed horizontal stabilizers with hinging elevators at each end, plus eight vertical stabilizers with rudders mounted on the rear.

Many newspapers around the country mentioned the "gassing" of two crew members overcome by fumes. Some say it was exhaust fumes from the engines as the Roma was being maneuvered into its hangar, some say it hit a tree stump while landing and gas escaped from a hole torn in the covering.

**It is unlikely that the Roma would have its engines running while being put it her hangar so as to cause carbon monoxide poisoning.  Also, the Roma was constructed with ballonets--internal balloons to control the attitude of ship. In a letter dated Feb. 1, 1922, Dale Mabry emphasized to the commandant of the Airship School the necessity of replacing the external envelope and ballonets.

In November 1921, during its first American test flight, an aluminum door came loose from the Roma's cabin and fell into one of its propeller blades, and three crewmen blacked out while trying to repair damage to the gasbag. The Air Service dismissed the incident as minor.

FLIGHT MAGAZINE, Dec. 29, 1921 CONCLUSIVE REPORT OF THE GAS LEAK

This article reveals that the Roma suffered a gas leak due to a shattered propeller which tore holes in the keel and lower diaphragm of a gas compartment.  The stowaway was probably a bird.
 

The Roma Flies Again

The erection of the late Italian semi-rigid airship Roma, recently purchased by the U.S. Government, was completed sooner than was previously anticipated, and a successful trial flight was carried out on November 15 last, at Langley Field.

This maiden flight, which lasted about 3 1/2 hours, was marked by two exciting incidents, firstly by the discovery of a stowaway perched out on the nose of the envelope — where he was delighting in his stolen joy-ride — and, secondly, by the breaking of one of the forward starboard propeller-blades. Splinters from the latter tore holes in the keel covering and in the lower diaphragm of No. 3 gas compartment, but the prompt and plucky action of the engineer in charge of the engine at this section, assisted by two others, in stopping the engine and effecting immediate repairs, prevented any serious trouble. All three men were "gassed” but the Roma made a safe landing at the Field.

THE FALL OF ROMA

Some of the Roma's crew were uneasy about the airship's poor manners in the air, its anemic power [with the original engines], and its vulnerability in bad weather.

Its weaknesses had been apparent for nearly a year - since March 1921, when a reporter accompanied American officers on an Italian test flight. The ship failed to climb high enough to fly, as planned, over Mount Vesuvius, and ``two or three'' of its engines, he later wrote, ``are usually on strike when they are supposed to be running.''

The Army had overlooked those problems. Its Air Service was desperate to maintain a grip on the nation's budding lighter-than-air program in the face of great Navy success, and the Roma could be had quickly and cheaply. The Army bought it and shipped it home.

After a few weeks of work to install the new engines, it was planned that Roma would resume flying in late February 1922 for the purpose of testing the new engines.  On Feb. 21st, the morning was overcast with intermittent showers. 

THE FATEFUL DAY TO TEST NEW ENGINES

A steady drizzle fell onto the big hangar's roof at Langley Field (a structure built on the marshes along Hampton's Back River) as the Roma crew arrived, shivering, for a battery of preflight inspections of Roma's  engines, patchy gasbag, and purity and pressure of the hydrogen in the dirigible's cells.

TWO VERSIONS OF THE LAUNCH
 

Aviation Historian magazine
From the moment of the release of the docking cables, Mabry had to work hard to control the airship. The dirigible immediately started to gain height too quickly, assuming a pronounced nose-up attitude, and only after some decisive intervention on the bleed-air valves was the correct flying attitude resumed.

After this initial problem, the flight proceeded well at first, with Roma achieving a speed of 75 mph, a speed never obtained with the Ansaldo engines. It was noted that the American engines functioned perfectly, generating less vibration through the airframe than their Italian predecessors

Wings of Valor, Wings of Gold
Capt. Mabry was in command, Maj. Thornell and 1st Lt. Walter Reed were aboard.  Contrary to some accounts of the airship's final flight, the Roma handled perfectly for Lt. Reed, her pilot, as he maneuvered her for 45 minutes over Newport News, Hampton and Norfolk.  (according to accounts by the few crewmen who survived the crash.)

Roma reached Chesapeake Bay near the mouth of the Back River. Mabry ordered the ship south along the shoreline, toward Old Point Comfort. The crew waved to people below at Fort Monroe, looked down on the site of the burned Hotel Chamberlin, and at crowds on the government pier.

Astern, Sgt. Virden T. Peek, an engineer, was admiring the competent clatter of the Liberty engine he oversaw. The ship, it seemed to him, was for the first time in American hands and behaving as advertised.

In the control cabin, Army 1st Lt. Walter J. Reed, a World War I Balloon Corps veteran with a degree in architecture, sat in the pilot's seat. The Roma was responding quickly, surely, to his commands.

Lt. Byrum G. Burt Jr. sat across the narrow cabin at the elevator controls. He, too, found the ship's behavior remarkably good.

The Roma headed out over the water toward Willoughby Spit, and Mabry tapped his friend Reed on the shoulder, asked to take the helm himself (according to accounts by the crewmen who survived the crash.)

Reed, recovering from a nasty bout with the flu, didn't argue. The Roma now literally passed into the hands of one of the Air Service's most promising young officers - commander of a World War I balloon company in France, a disciple of the visionary Billy Mitchell, and a popular, swashbuckling bachelor.

Mabry continued on course for Willoughby Spit and headed toward Naval Station Norfolk over which the crewmen were to run further tests on the Liberty engines.  The spit was dotted with waving Norfolkians gazing at the mammoth craft overhead. Mabry steered the Roma toward the Navy base. As he did, almost unnoticed at first, a fatal chain of events began to unfold.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE

Capt. Dale Mabry was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery, Feb. 25, 1922

.
Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute by United States Naval Institute Jan. - Jun. 1922

The Roma Christened
The 400-foot army airship Roma fought her way for five hours and a half against a head wind from Langley Field to Washington December 21 to be named and put in commission officially by Miss Fenrose Wainwright, daughter of the Assistant Secretary of War, who broke a bottle of liquid air on the prow of the dirigible.

Secretary Weeks, Secretary Denby and Senator Rolandi-Ricci, the Italian Ambassador, who participated in the ceremonies, waited for three hours in the chilling wind which blew from the northwest, for the ship to arrive. They were to have taken a flight in her over the city and to Baltimore with other invited guests, but the wind was rising steadily, and Major General Patrick, Chief of the Army Air Service, ordered the Roma back to her hangar at Langley Field as soon as she could be refueled.

The great dolphin-like craft arrived at Boiling Field at noon and departed at 2:30, scurrying home with the wind behind her, in two hours and forty minutes. A crowd of guests and officers of the two air services awaited the arrival of the army's new semi-rigid, the largest lighter-than-air ship in this country, at Boiling Field from 9 o'clock, impatiently stamping their feet and trudging back and forth in an effort to keep warm. Aeroplanes left the field from time to time to search out the great ship, which was continually reported by radio as approaching from the southeast, but did not appear. Finally she was reported as over Alexandria, making slow progress against a stiff wind, with three of her motors frozen.

Suddenly in the southwest there appeared a great, dull-gray shape, scarcely distinguishable against the slate-colored sky. It was the Roma — a massive, fat dirigible, moving a little toward the east, slowly and majestically lifting her nose over the encircling hills. Gradually her bulk loomed up, and she swung toward the west, heading directly for the field, With her motors roaring deafeningly. Approaching quite low, she seemed barely to miss the trees and hangars as she pushed against the wind and finally, reaching the center of the field, put her nose down and slowly settled.

A door in the V-shaped keel, near the bow flew open and a great coil of rope dropped to the "handling" crew below. All hands took hold and slowly the great craft came to earth.

The wind, sweeping from the north and west, swung the great ship back and forth as the men strained at the rope, while stay wires with cables attached were dropped out of ports along the keel to other men who stood by to steady her. Leveling off, but under the blast of her propellers, she settled on her "bumpers" and was landed, but she never stayed still a minute, swaying back and forth and carrying the men clinging to the ropes with her;

Then followed the naming by Miss Wainwright, who stood on a stepladder under the great curving bows as she broke the bottle of liquid air, which flew into a bluish-gray cloud of vapor as the glass crashed.

Speaking for Italy, Ambassador Rolandi-Ricca expressed his pleasure that America should have bought her.  Secretary Weeks, in accepting the airship for the War Department, said that the pleasure and opportunity were rather his, that the army should be so fortunate in securing a ship developed by the skill of Italian craftsmen.

Major J. G. Thornell and his staff of pilots and navigators were also thanked personally by Secretary Weeks for their successful trip, despite their handicap of an adverse wind and disabled motors.

After the naming, the color presentation took place, Assistant Secretary Wainwright replying to Lieut. Gen. Giuseppe Vaccari, who spoke feelingly of the cordial relations between Italy and America as he presented the new American ensign for the Roma. The old ensign (FLAG) was then replaced by a new one presented by the Italians and hoisted high on the stern over her curious box-like rudder.

General Patrick then ordered the field cleared and the ship gassed and rebalanced for homeward flight. As the motors were tuned up the handling crew eased up on the hauling cable and the big ship rose slowly on an even keel.

As soon as she was clear of the field the "let go" signal was given and the cables were hauled up. She slowly forged ahead into the wind, turned to the southeast as she reached the edge of the field. At a height of a few hundred feet the engines were speeded up, and, assisted by the wind, she began her homeward trip at a high rate of speed, disappearing over the hills to the south. — Aerial Age Weekly, 2 January, 1922
 

Thirty-four Killed in Crash of the Roma

Thirty-four officers, enlisted men and civilians were killed on February 21 when the Army dirigible airship Roma plunged a thousand feet and crashed to earth in flames near the Hampton Roads army base. Only eleven of the forty-five men aloft with her were saved, and some of them were terribly hurt. Three were slightly injured.

The breaking of, the rudder with its vertical controls, affixed in box-kite fashion to the stern, is believed the original cause of the disaster. Just as the craft plummeted into the earth the metal-clad nose struck high-tension electric power wires, and the dirigible was fired from stem to stern. Only those whose fortunate positions in the car enabled them to leap before the flames ran with lightning speed through the gas bag, had the faintest chance for their lives. The thirty-three who couldn't jump died, One officer broke his neck in a dive to earth and was dead before he could be got to a hospital.

The Roma's gas bag, with its cubical capacity of 1,100,000 cubic feet, was filled with hydrogen. Non-flammable helium was the levitating gas used when the Roma, which was bought from the Italian Government, went on her first trial flight last December.** But it had been planned to send the ship — the largest semi-rigid airship in the world — on a spring cruise over the country to demonstrate her fitness to cross the Atlantic. In her bag had been the whole available supply of helium in the United States. Flying officials wanted that for the spring journey, so they pumped it into tanks and substituted hydrogen.

**Roma's first trial flight was in NOVEMBER.  In December, she flew to Washington DC for her christening. So she may have been filled with helium for the Dec. 21 christening or as early as Nov. for her first test flight.

Trip to Test Liberty Motors

The occasion for the fatal flight was a desire to test the Liberty Motors which had been installed to replace the Italian motors. In charge of Captain Dale Mabry, with a full complement of officers and men and a few civilian guests, the huge craft went aloft from Langley Field at 1 130 o'clock in the afternoon. It was just forty-nine minutes later that she lay in ruins, with most of those who had gone up in gay holiday mood dead in the wreckage. The whole story was compressed into the last minute or so. In that time Captain Mabry and Lieut. Byrum G. Burt, at the control wheels, had striven with every resource of courage and skill to guide the wobbling airship to a safe landing. Others trained for swift action in just such pinched seconds had played their part by hurling overboard bag after bag of sand ballast. An instant later the falling airship came into contact with the electric wires, charged with 2,300 volts, that supply current to the army base, and the explosion and fire followed.

Many Officers Among Dead

The crushed, misshapen mass that thudded onto the field was a funeral pyre of such intense heat that the agonies of those who were not killed in the crash must have been mercifully brief. The bodies were burned beyond recognition and the slow work of listing the victims was carried out partly by a process of elimination and partly through non-combustible objects that the aviators had carried in their pockets. That list when it was completed showed that two majors, four captains, and seven Lieutenants were among the lost.

Lt. W. E. Riley, a member of the official crew, jumped from a window of the cabin when the explosion came. His parachute failed to work properly and he struck the street pavement on his head. His neck was broken and he died before reaching the hospital.

There was just one man who leaped and landed on soft ground. He escaped almost unhurt with the exception of a few burns on his face and hands. He is Lt. Byrum G. Burt. He jumped from the Roma when she was about thirty feet in the air. He landed in the mud on the shore of Hampton Roads.

Captain Walter G.[sic] Reed, who stood by the ship to the last and did all he could to help others, came out of the burning mass of steel and wood and rags with just a few scars on his ears and hands. He says he does not know why he is alive. Of all the line officers on the Roma only two escaped death — Captain Reed and Lt. Burt.

Falls Across Railroad Track

The airship fell directly across a railroad track, the elevator and rudder falling on and remaining suspended from a telegraph pole. At one side of the track was a stack of steel parts of railway cars, on the other was a big heap of pig iron. It was into the pile of iron scraps that the passenger car of the dirigible smashed.

Rescuers from the Army Supply Depot rushed to the scene, and many daring attempts were made to penetrate the smoke and gas to rescue those in the ship. It was several hours before the car of the airship could be reached, and then only after army, navy, and civilian fire-fighting forces had quenched the flames. The rescue work was also delayed until huge army derricks were brought to the scene to lift the steel wreckage from the car.

Major General Mason M. Patrick, Chief of Air Service, who flew to the scene of the disaster a few hours after it occurred, sent the following telegram to the Adjutant General on February 22:

"Have ordered thorough investigation to determine cause of Roma disaster. Information already gathered indicates that cable to elevating rudders broke. Ship nosed down. Struck live wires carrying high tension electric current and this started fire. There was no explosion and no fire until after those wires were hit and broken. "PATRICK."

General Patrick also reported orally that the accident to the elevating rudders of the Roma occurred at an elevation of only 600 feet.

Crew of Picked Men

The Roma's crew was picked from the men stationed at Langley Field. They were said to be among the best airmen at the big army post. Each man was assigned to certain duties, and each man was an expert at the duties assigned to him.

It is the opinion of all survivors, as well as of observers of the disaster, that the officers in charge of the craft, the operating crew, and others aboard acted most admirably and coolly under the harrowing circumstances. They are declared to have stuck to their posts as long as it was possible to do anything with the ship, a number dying at their posts of duty.

In the flight, on what was to have been a speed trial with her four Liberty motors, each of 400 horsepower, the Roma was to have tried to maintain a speed of 100 -miles an hour. It was the first time up with the new motors, and the first time she had ever attempted to make any unusual speed.

The Roma had not been out of her hangar at Langley Field for several weeks. — Army and Navy Journal, 25 February, 1922.

1. Giddings Eldon Mabry

2. Jesse Hughes Mabry

3. John Bramlett Mabry

4. Milton Harvey Mabry, Jr.

5. Dale Mabry

6. Eloise Mabry

7. Harton Washburn Mabry