USS Langley (CV-1)

USS ''Langley'' (CV-1/AV-3) was the United States Navy's first aircraft carrier, converted in 1920 from the collier USS ''Jupiter'' (Navy Fleet Collier No. 3), and also the US Navy's first turbo-electric-powered ship. ''Langley'' was named after Samuel Langley, an American aviation pioneer. She was the sole member of her class to be rebuilt as a carrier. Conversion of another collier was planned but canceled when the Washington Naval Treaty required the cancellation of the partially built s ''Lexington'' and ''Saratoga'', freeing up their hulls for conversion to the aircraft carriers and . Following another conversion to a seaplane tender, ''Langley'' saw service in World War II. On 27 February 1942, while ferrying a cargo of USAAF P-40s to Java, she was attacked by nine twin-engine Japanese bombers of the Japanese 21st and 23rd naval air flotillas and so badly damaged that she had to be scuttled by her escorts.

Construction

President William H. Taft attended the ceremony when ''Jupiter''s keel was laid down on 18 October 1911, at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, California. She was launched on 24 August 1912, sponsored by Mrs. Thomas F. Ruhm; and commissioned on 7 April 1913, under Commander Joseph M. Reeves. Her sister ships were , which disappeared without a trace in World War I, , and , both of which disappeared on the same route as ''Cyclops'' in World War II.

''Jupiter'' was the first turbo-electric-powered ship of the US Navy. had been built with a steam turbine and geared drive but performance was inferior to the earlier ''Cyclops'' with its two triple expansion steam engines. ''Jupiter''s electric drive, designed by William Le Roy Emmet and built by the General Electric Company, consisted of two electric motors, each directly connected to a propeller shaft, powered by a single Curtis turbine and alternator set. At 2,000 rpm and 2,200 volts the set delivered a speed of with propellers at 110 rpm. There was also a weight saving with the turbo-electric drive being 156 tons versus the 280 tons of equivalent machinery for ''Cyclops''.

Service history

Collier

After successfully passing her sea trial ''Jupiter'' embarked a United States Marine Corps detachment at San Francisco, California, and reported to the Pacific Fleet at Mazatlán, Mexico, on 27 April 1914, bolstering US naval strength on the Mexican Pacific coast in the tense days of the Veracruz crisis. She remained on the Pacific coast until she departed for Philadelphia, on 10 October. ''En route'', the collier steamed through the Panama Canal on Columbus Day, the first vessel to transit it from the Pacific to the Atlantic.

Prior to America's entry into World War I, she cruised the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, attached to the Atlantic Fleet Auxiliary Division. The ship arrived at Norfolk, Virginia, on 6 April 1917, and was assigned to the Naval Overseas Transport Service, interrupted her coaling operations by two cargo voyages to France, in June 1917 and November 1918. The first voyage transported a naval aviation detachment of 7 officers and 122 men to England. It was the first US aviation detachment to arrive in Europe and was commanded by Lieutenant Kenneth Whiting, who became ''Langley'' first executive officer five years later. ''Jupiter'' was back in Norfolk, on 23 January 1919, whence she sailed for Brest, France, on 8 March, for coaling duty in European waters to expedite the return of victorious veterans to the United States. Upon reaching Norfolk, on 17 August, the ship was transferred to the West Coast. Her conversion to an aircraft carrier was authorized on 11 July 1919, and she sailed to Hampton Roads, Virginia, on 12 December, where she was decommissioned on 24 March 1920.

Aircraft carrier

''Jupiter'' was converted into the first US aircraft carrier at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Portsmouth, Virginia. On 11 April 1920, she was renamed ''Langley'' in honor of Samuel Pierpont Langley, an American astronomer, physicist, aeronautics pioneer and aircraft engineer, and she was given the hull number ''CV-1''. By early 1921, memories of World War I were swaying public opinion away from warship construction toward disarmament. Article VIII of the Washington Naval Treaty provided an exemption for experimental aircraft carriers in existence or building on 12 November 1921. The Washington Naval Treaty was signed on 6 February 1922; and ''Langley'' was recommissioned on 20 March 1922 for the purpose of conducting experiments in seaborne aviation. The commanding officer was Commander Kenneth Whiting, who had first proposed conversion of a collier to the General Board of the United States Navy three years earlier. ''Langley'' was designed to carry up to 34 airplanes, e.g., 12 single-seaters, 12 two-seaters, and 10 “torpedo-dropping” aircraft.

As the first American aircraft carrier, ''Langley'' was the scene of several seminal events in US naval aviation. On 17 October 1922, Lt. Virgil C. Griffin piloted the first plane—a Vought VE-7—launched from her full-length wooden deck. Though this was not the first time an airplane had taken off from a ship, and though ''Langley'' was not the first ship with an installed flight deck, this one launching was of monumental importance to the modern US Navy. With ''Langley'' underway nine days later, Lieutenant Commander Godfrey de Courcelles Chevalier made the first landing, in an Aeromarine 39B. On 18 November, Commander Whiting was the first aviator to be catapulted from a carrier's deck.

An unusual feature of ''Langley'' was provision for a carrier pigeon house on the stern between the 5-inch guns. Pigeons had been carried aboard seaplanes for message transport since World War I, and were to be carried on aircraft operated from ''Langley''. The pigeons were trained at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard while ''Langley'' was undergoing conversion. As long as the pigeons were released a few at a time for exercise, they returned to the ship; but when the whole flock was released while ''Langley'' was anchored off Tangier Island, the pigeons flew south and roosted in the cranes of the Norfolk shipyard. The pigeons never went to sea again and the former pigeon house became the executive officer's quarters; but the early plans for conversion of ''Lexington'' and ''Saratoga'' included compartments for pigeons.

By 15 January 1923, ''Langley'' had begun flight operations and tests in the Caribbean Sea for carrier landings. In June, she steamed to Washington, D.C., to give a demonstration at a flying exhibition before civil and military dignitaries. She arrived at Norfolk on 13 June, and commenced training along the Atlantic coast and Caribbean which carried her through the end of the year. This publicity cruise stopped at Bar Harbor, Maine, Portland, Maine, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Gloucester, Massachusetts, Boston and New York City. After entering port and anchoring, ''Langley'' published a takeoff and landing schedule so interested civilians might watch. Although the aviators did some formation flying over the cities, people were more interested in watching the shipboard takeoffs and landings. The planes seldom attained flying speed on deck when taking off while the ship was at anchor with little or no wind, but the pilots were confident their Vought VE-7s could reach flying speed during the drop from the flight deck before reaching the water. In 1924, ''Langley'' participated in more maneuvers and exhibitions, and spent the summer at Norfolk for repairs and alterations, she departed for the West Coast late in the year and arrived in San Diego, California, on 29 November to join the Pacific Battle Fleet.

Captain Joseph Mason "Bull" Reeves, who commanded all fleet aircraft, went aboard the ''Langley'' in October 1925. During the 1925 maneuvers aboard the Langley, Reeves developed dive-bombing tactics to attack enemy ships.

In 1927, ''Langley'' was at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. For the next 12 years, she operated off the California coast and Hawaii, engaged in training fleet units, experimentation, pilot training, and tactical-fleet problems. ''Langley'' was featured in the 1929 silent film about naval aviation ''The Flying Fleet.''

File:USS Langley (CV-1) being converted to an aircraft carrier at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, 14 May 1921 (NNAM.1996.488.010.002).jpg, ''Langley'' being converted to an aircraft carrier at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, 1921
File:USS Langley (CV-1), USS Saratoga (CV-3) and USS Lexington (CV-2) docked at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, circa 1930 (NH 95037).jpg, ''Langley'' at Puget Sound Navy Yard, immediately opposite (with black stripe on funnel) and in 1929

Seaplane tender

On 25 October 1936, she put into Mare Island Navy Yard, California for overhaul and conversion to a seaplane tender. Though her career as a carrier had ended, her well-trained pilots had proved invaluable to the next two carriers, ''Lexington'' and ''Saratoga'' (commissioned on 14 December and 16 November 1927, respectively).

''Langley'' completed conversion on 26 February 1937 and was assigned hull number ''AV-3'' on 11 April. She was assigned to the Aircraft Scouting Force and commenced her tending operations out of Seattle, Washington, Sitka, Alaska, Pearl Harbor, and San Diego, California. She departed for a brief deployment with the Atlantic Fleet from 1 February-10 July 1939, and then steamed to assume duties with the Asiatic Fleet at Manila arriving on 24 September.

World War II

On the entry of the US into World War II, ''Langley'' was anchored off Cavite, Philippines. On 8 December, following the invasion of the Philippines by Japan, she departed Cavite for Balikpapan in the Dutch East Indies. In the natural state of alarm (the attack on Pearl Harbor had happened the day before) 300 rounds were shot at an object in the sky before it was realized that it was the planet Venus. As the Japanese advance continued, ''Langley'' proceeded to Australia, arriving in Darwin on 1 January 1942. She then became part of the American-British-Dutch-Australian Command (ABDACOM) naval forces. Until 11 January, ''Langley'' assisted the Royal Australian Air Force in running anti-submarine patrols from Darwin.

''Langley'' went to Fremantle to pick up a cargo of 32 P-40 fighters of the Far East Air Force's 13th Pursuit Squadron (Provisional), along with U.S. Army Air Force (USAAF) pilots and ground crews. At Fremantle, ''Langley'' and the cargo ship (loaded with an additional 27 unassembled and crated P-40s), joined Convoy MS.5 which had just arrived from Melbourne bound for Colombo, Ceylon with troops and supplies eventually destined for India and Burma. The convoy was composed of the United States Army Transport and the Australian troop transports and , escorted by the light cruiser . MS.5 departed Fremantle on 22 February. En route to Colombo, ''Langley'' and ''Sea Witch'' were directed by ABDACOM to leave the convoy and instead proceed individually to deliver the planes to Tjilatjap, Java.

In the early hours of 27 February, ''Langley'' rendezvoused with the destroyers and , which had been sent from Tjilatjap to escort her. Later that morning, a Japanese reconnaissance aircraft located the formation. At 11:40, about south of Tjilatjap, the seaplane tender, along with ''Edsall'' and ''Whipple'' were attacked by sixteen Mitsubishi G4M "Betty" bombers of the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service's Takao Kōkūtai, led by Lieutenant Jiro Adachi, flying out of Denpasar airfield on Bali, and escorted by fifteen A6M2 Reisen fighters. Rather than dropping all their bombs at once, the Japanese bombers attacked releasing partial salvos. Since they were level bombing from medium altitude, ''Langley'' was able to alter helm when the bombs were released and evade the first and second bombing passes, but the bombers changed their tactics on the third pass and bracketed all the directions ''Langley'' could turn. As a result, ''Langley'' took five hits from a mix of bombs as well as three near misses, with 16 crewmen killed. The topside burst into flames, steering was impaired, and the ship developed a 10° list to port. ''Langley'' went dead in the water as her engine room flooded. At 13:32, the order to abandon ship was passed.

After taking off the surviving crew and passengers (''Whipple'' rescued 308 men and ''Edsall'' 177) at 13:58, the escorting destroyers stood off and began firing nine shells and two torpedoes into ''Langley'' hull at 14:29 to prevent her from falling into enemy hands, scuttling her at approximately . After being transferred to the oiler , many of ''Langley''s crew were lost when ''Pecos'' was sunk en route to Australia by Japanese carrier aircraft. Out of over 630 total crewmen and ''Langley'' survivors on ''Pecos'', 232 were rescued while more than 400 were left behind and died due to Japanese submarines in the area hindering rescue efforts. Exact casualty numbers for the doomed ships of the United States Asiatic Fleet and American-British-Dutch-Australian Command are impossible to gather because so many Allied warships were sunk in the Dutch East Indies campaign (at least 24 total) and many of those ships had already picked up survivors of other sunken ships and then were also sunk by the Japanese hours or days later. Thirty-one of the thirty-three pilots assigned to the USAAF 13th Pursuit Squadron (Provisional) being transported by ''Langley'' remained on ''Edsall'' to be brought to Tjilatjap, but were lost when she was sunk on the same day by Japanese warships while responding to the distress calls of ''Pecos''. According to the Bureau of Naval Personnel a total of 288 U.S. Navy officers and crewmen from ''Langley'' were missing in action and later declared dead following the sinking of ''Langley'' and ''Pecos''. Including the 31 USAAF pilots that were originally on ''Langley'' a total of 319 from ''Langley'' were killed.https://www.naval-history.net/WW2UScasaaDB-USNBPbyDate1941-42.htm . Retrieved 25 August 2023

Awards and decorations

USS ''Langley'' (as AV-3) earned two battle stars on its Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Streamer: One for the Philippine Islands Operation, 8 December 1941 – 6 May 1942; and one for Netherlands East Indies Engagements, 23 January – 27 February 1942.

See also

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Citations

Notes

References

Bibliography

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External links

Images of USS ''Langley'' (CV-1) in the Naval History and Heritage Command's Photo Archive

Image archive
at San Diego Air & Space Museum Archives

''Langley'' at NavSource.org

Video of early landings aboard USS ''Langley'' (CV-1) c. 1922

{{DEFAULTSORT:Langley (CV-01)
1912 ships
Aircraft carriers of the United States Navy
Aircraft carriers sunk by aircraft
Maritime incidents in February 1942
Proteus-class colliers
Seaplane tenders of the United States Navy
Ships built in Vallejo, California
Ships sunk by Japanese aircraft
Turbo-electric steamships
World War I auxiliary ships of the United States
World War II aircraft carriers of the United States
World War II shipwrecks in the Java Sea