Early in July 1944, near the end of World War II, a German submarine had been reported near Mt. Desert Rock. Besides the patrol craft assigned to the area, the blimp K-14 was sent from Lakehurst, New Jersey, useful because it could hover over one spot and direct a surface attack. On the night of July 2, K-14, supposed to be patrolling near Mt. Desert Rock, failed to report to its Bar Harbor base. All patrol craft were alerted, but not until 5:30 a.m. was the blimp sighted, looking like two small islands of balloon fabric with five men clinging to one. PATRIOT took the five men off and brought them to the Bar Harbor base. One died enroute. Six were trapped in the cabin and lost. The survivors reported that about 9:30 the blimp dropped 50 feet into the water and crashed. One man with a ready knife cut a big hole through the aluminum side of the car, through which the five escaped.
Captain Moffat in command of the Bar Harbor base sent a buoy tender and a picket boat to tow the wreck ashore, a great bag of helium with a fragile eight-ton car suspended below it. Progress was slow – only one and a half knots – but in relays they grounded K-14 on the beach north of Cranberry Island. Attempts to lift the car by the attached engine failed when the bracket broke away. However, a net tender with two “horns” managed to gather in enough of the bag to cut the car clear of the fabric, and recover the bodies of the crew. The car was then filled with inflated truck inner tubes and towed to Southwest Harbor.
The car was so fragile that it would collapse if lifted in slings or even a cargo net, so a special frame was constructed and the car was whisked away to Lakehurst. The fabric was spread out on a field and carefully inspected. Technicians found many bullet holes, apparently 40mm, which entered aft of the car and came out on top amidships. Nevertheless, to the great disappointment of some, the crash was blamed on “pilot error.” According to Captain Moffat’s published account, “… it was obvious that the court wanted no record of any such attack in those waters.”