Some say that survival in war is sometimes just a matter of luck; others talk about a chain of events changing history. In October 1943 these two ideas led to a fatal collision of two Navy blimps on the north side of Barnegat Inlet.

The story begins with the K-64, a 290-foot-long patrol blimp that was assigned to a temporary base at Cape May. From there it would spend long days patrolling the Delaware Bay and south looking for German U-boats.