NAS Houma (LTA)

The base's worst week came in April 1944. On April 19, K-133 was lost in a Gulf storm and nine crewmen drowned; Ensign William Thewes survived 21 hours in the water on a life jacket. Two days later, 70 mph winds damaged the hangar doors and three of the five remaining blimps broke free. Two crashed and burned, one came down in Bayou Blue, and no one was aboard. Airship Squadron 22 had flown from May 1943, and named its blimps for local figures: Jean Lafitte, Dominique You and Nez Coupe. Blimp operations ended that September.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Southdown Plantation and Terrebonne Museum — 4.5 mi
  A Greek Revival sugar plantation house in Houma, worked by 233 enslaved people by 1852, with the last Terrebonne mill's story and a worker's cabin of about 1885.
• Mandalay National Wildlife Refuge — 8.1 mi
  A 4,212-acre refuge of freshwater marsh and cypress-tupelo swamp southwest of Houma, with a nature trail to a boardwalk and observation deck and mostly boat-only access.
• Laurel Valley Village — 16 mi
  A sugar plantation's workers' village south of Thibodaux, with cabins of about 1845, shotgun houses, a store and cemetery, and the 1887 strike and massacre in the parish around it.
• Wetlands Acadian Cultural Center — 17 mi
  A Jean Lafitte National Historical Park center on Bayou Lafourche with Acadian and bayou-life exhibits, a 200-seat theater and ranger-guided boat tours to the E. D. White house.

More markers nearby

• Residence Plantation — 1.7 mi
• Magnolia Cemetery — 3.2 mi
• YRF-4C Phantom II — 3.3 mi
• A History of Terrebonne Parish — 3.3 mi