And just to be accurate, the US was the only nation to operationally deploy airplane carrying airships. The Akron and it's sister ship the Macon we're the only ones designed from the get-go to be flying aircraft carriers. Each could carry up to five of these little scout planes. These dirigibles were intended to be the long-range eyes of the surface fleet, the planes being primarily a means to increase the recon footprint of the airship while providing a dubious self-defense capability. There was a vintage Navy recruiting poster that showed P-39's issuing forth from a mamoth airship (why Army planes instead of Navy ones is open to speculation). The only other airship to operate aircraft from it was the USN Los Angeles. It was built in Germany for the US as a war reparation, and didn't have internal storage (a.k.a a hanger bay) like the Akron class; the pilot of the scout had to climb up a rope ladder to reach a trap door in the bottom of the Los Angeles. This feature was added as a concept demonstration for the system latter deployed on the Akron and the Macon, which were built here in the US.
As an interesting asside, the Los Angeles was the only US dirigible not destroyed in a crash (she was decommissioned and scrapped); those Germans really knew how to build them!
