USS Langley (CV-1) |
When
the USS
Langley (CV-1) was officially commissioned on March 20, 1922, the United States Navy took a semi-timid
step into its future. The Langley was the first American aircraft carrier and the
second in the world, after Britain’s primitive
HMS
Argus in 1918. But they were
already behind the aggressive Japanese who
had already finished and would commission in just months the Hōshō,
the first ship built from the keel up
to launch and retrieve combat aircraft.
By
contrast the Langley, which was built
on the hull of a decommissioned collier,
was a slow, lumbering tub. But then it’s eventual compliment of fighter planes—Vought VE-7 Bluebirds—were
already obsolete World War I canvas
covered biplanes which were not much faster. Still, its 540 foot long flight deck gave a generation of naval aviators their sea
legs including many who would go on to become senior flight officers in World War II.
Her
origins were somewhat more humble. She
was built at the Mare Island Naval
Shipyard in Vallejo, California as the USS Jupiter, a 19,670 ton
collier. President William Howard Taft was on hand for ceremonies when her
keel was laid in 1911. It was highly
unusual for a President to attend such a ceremony for all but the most
important capital ships. Maybe it was just that he was on a rare visit
to the West Coast and need some
events to round out his schedule and get his picture in the newspapers.
After all, he was up for re-election
the next year. But it might also have
been an indication of the importance of this new class of ships which would
dramatically extend the range and time at sea for America’s aging Great White Fleet during an age of an intense
international naval arms race. The sister
ships would follow—USS Cyclops, USS Proteus, and USS Nereus. Cyclops would
be lost without a trace in the North
Atlantic during World War I and Nereus would vanish in the same waters
in the next war, both presumed to have been sunk by German U-boats.
The collier USS Jupiter. |
Jupiter was launched on
August 14, 1912. Besides a large
capacity for coal and modern heavy equipment to transfer the fuel to warships, she was the first Navy electrically propelled ship powered by General Electric Turbo Electric Motors turning twin propellers.
After
completing sea trials and assigned
to the Pacific Fleet one of her first
missions was not as a collier but as a troop
transport. During the 1914 Vera Cruise Crisis she carried a
contingent of Marines to stand-by
off shore at Mazatlán, Mexico threatening the country’s West Coast. After the crisis passed Jupiter became the first Navy ship to transit the Panama Canal west to east as she sailed
to join the Atlantic Fleet.
During
World War I she supported Navy operations in the Caribbean and North
Atlantic. Also in the build-up of American
forces in Europe, she made two runs as a freighter/troop carrier including one
that delivered the first American aviators into the war zone—a naval aviation detachment of 7 officers and 122 men to England. At war’s end she supplied coal to the ships bringing members of the American Expeditionary
Forces (AEF) home through much of 1919.
After
a short tour with the Pacific Fleet again, Congress
authorized her conversion into an entirely new classification of warship—the
aircraft carrier. Previously naval
aircraft had been launched and retrieved from short flight decks built onto cruisers like the USS Birmingham. While those tests showed that it was
practical, the jerry-rigged conversions could not carry enough aircraft to be
useful in combat beyond reconnaissance duty. The Jupiter
class colliers were just the right size and had very little superstructure to remove to add a
flight deck.
Jupiter sailed once
again to through the Panama Canal to report to the Norfolk Navy Yard in Virginia
where she was decommissioned and
work begun on her conversion. On April
11, 1920 she was renamed in honor of aviation
pioneer Samuel P. Langley.
Upon
being commissioned at Hampton Roads in
1922 Commander Kenneth Whiting, who
had advocated the construction of a carrier and had helped oversee its
construction, assumed temporary command.
He would later server as the ships Executive
Officer and be directly involved in the launch and command of the Navy’s
first five carriers. Often called the Father of the Carrier Whiting had been
the young Lieutenant in command of
that naval aviation detachment that the Jupiter
had delivered.
Whiting
recognized that the Langley was more
of test laboratory than an effective
member of the battle fleet. She was far
too slow to keep up with the fleet. But
he felt sure it would suffice to train pilots,
refine the techniques for using the catapult
launch and breaking cable tail hook recovery necessary for
operations. In additions crews would
learn how to use the elevator to
bring up aircraft from the below deck
hanger. All of this was essential to
modern aircraft carrier development.
First tail hook landing on board. |
The
fledgling carrier began to rack up firsts.
On October 22, 1922 Lt. Virgil C.
Griffin became the first pilot to off from the deck in his Vought bi-plane. Nine days later Lieutenant Commander Godfrey de Courcelles Chevalier made the first
landing in an Aeromarine 39B. Tragically this promising young officer died
of injuries sustained in the crash of a Vought on a routine flight from Norfolk
to Yorktown. On November 19 Cmdr. Whiting himself became
the first flyer to be launched from the ship’s catapult.
In
January 1923 the Langley began
regular sea duty in the Caribbean. She
would conduct training off of the East Coast and impress dignitaries in
Washington with demonstrations of her capacities. As expected, the demonstration whetted the appetite
for additional ships. Congress had
already authorized the conversion of another collier, although Whiting had
begged for new construction capable of operating with the fleet.
Fate
stepped in before the second conversion could get underway. The Washington
Naval Treaty of 1922 pledged all of the Great Powers to a level of naval
disarmament. Not only were some in-service
capital ships to be scrapped, but projects under construction had to be
halted. For the U.S. that meant stopping
work on two fast, modern cruisers—USS Lexington and USS Saratoga
both of which had completed, or nearly completed hulls laid down. But the treaty failed to include aircraft
carriers as capital ships. Congress
quickly scrapped plans to convert another collier and ordered that the two
ships be converted to carriers. These
new ships were a significant upgrade from the Langley. Their pilots and
crews were largely trained on the original ship.
From
1927 Langley sailed the waters off of
California and Hawaii in training fleet
units, experimentation, pilot training, and tactical-fleet problems. But
by 1936 she was clearly obsolete as a carrier.
She put into Mare Island where she was reconfigured as a seaplane tender with the new hull
designation AV-13.
She
joined the Aircraft Scouting Force of
the Pacific Fleet and was on regular sea and patrol duty until the American
entry into World War II. Stationed off
of the Philippines when the Japanese
attack on those islands began on December 8, 1941, Langley was ordered to sail for the Dutch East Indies and from there was forced to retreat to Darwin, Australia where she joined the
make-shift American-British-Dutch-Australian
Command (ABDACOM) naval forces. She first assisted the Australians in anti-submarine patrol.
Seaplane Tender USS Langley under attack off of Java. |
Then
in February she was assigned a critical mission, delivering 32 P-40 fighters belonging to the Far East Air Force’s 13th Pursuit Squadron and
their pilots and ground crews to Java. After departing Melbourne in a strong convoy,
Langley and the Sea
Witch split off to make their run to Java. After rendezvousing with a two destroyer screen escort on February 27,
the two transports came under attack by waves of Japanese Aichi D3A1 Val dive bombers. In
the third attack Langley was hit 5
times and 16 of her crew were killed.
The ship was soon dead in the waters and listing badly. An order to abandon ship was given and her escort destroyers sunk her with gunfire to prevent her from falling
into the hands of the enemy.
The
bad luck of the survivors, however, was just beginning. After being transferred to USS
Pecos, many of her crew was lost when Pecos was sunk en route
to Australia. Then thirty-one of the thirty three pilots assigned to the 13th
Pursuit Squadron were lost with the USS Edsall was sunk on the same day
while responding to the distress calls of Pecos.
The whole operation was a devastating loss.
The
name USS Langley lived on when light Independence
class carrier of the same name was commissioned in 1943 with the hull
designation CVL-27. The new ship saw action in several
Pacific battles. After the war she was transferred
to France where she was re-named the
La
Fayette. She was decommissioned
and scrapped in 1963.
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