Book Review: America’s First Aircraft Carrier: USS Langley and the Dawn of U.S. Naval Aviation

By David F. Winkler
Reviewed by David J. Scherer, HRNM Volunteer

America's First Aircraft Carrier is an account of the Navy's leap into air combat. It is an incisive report that pinpoints the obstructions faced entering into a new faction of sea warfare, chronicling its costs, both financial and personal. This book was written by David F. Winkler, a retired surface warfare officer, naval historian, and adjunct professor at the Naval War College.

Major changes in military aviation took place in the early 1920s, after the First World War. It was then that costs became a giant concern, and seemingly everyone in a uniform and in an office chair had suggestions but without offering sensible answers. Opposition to sending colliers to sea was loud and long until someone stunned the naysayers with this idea: convert the old collier Jupiter into a prototype aircraft carrier and make aviation an adjunct to the fleet. Two colliers, Jupiter and Jason, were given the honor.

Jupiter at Mare Island in 1913 (Wikipedia)

The hearings about the Navy’s foray into aviation were legendary. Even Army Air Service Maj. Gen. William (Billy) Mitchell asserted sternly that the Navy needed to stay on the water and allow the newly-formed U.S. Army Air Service handle airborne threats. On the arguments went, with Mitchell finally going overboard. He talked himself into a court martial as he hammered home the point that surface vessels were highly susceptible to air attacks (as if airborne vessels were not). His claim was that the Army Air Corps was designed and manned specially to meet that particular threat. An illustrious military aviation career ended for Mitchell all because the Navy promoted an independent naval air arm, and he could not accept that proposal.

The first aircraft carrier certainly was a sight to see, but not in terms of beauty. It began life as a collier, destined to become the first United States aircraft carrier USS Langley (CV 1), named for a Naval Academy assistant professor. This former coal collier underwent a major restoration to become the first aircraft carrier. Workmen peeled back several levels of the collier's superstructure and laid down a wooden deck in its place, bow to stern. A few steel cables were stretched crosswise and anchored in place with heavy bags near the stern—arresting gear, they called it.

USS Langley underway in 1927 (NHHC)

One can imagine what went through the mind of the first “visiting” aviator, flying an Aeromarine 39B bi-wing aircraft, and looking down on what he thought was an American aircraft carrier. He was right. It was USS Langley (CV 1), collier-turned-carrier with a bit of genius woven throughout. What that aviator would have seen from a few thousand feet above was a long, flat deck and trailing wake. The ship had no superstructure. Most of what made the wake was under the deck, where the business of flying over water begins. Lined atop the deck and near the rear were several thick adjustable cables lined perpendicular to the flying deck edges. Their job was to snag a hook dangling from the aircraft's tail section, thus bringing the plane and pilot to a jolting stop. Ultimately, Langley was in service into the Second World War.

America’s First Aircraft Carrier is a detailed and deeply researched demonstration of the myriad snags and drags at the beginning of naval aviation. The cost was more about the loss of life of those early carrier pilots than about monetary concerns. USS Langley faces up to and fends off an enemy striving to sap its fuel and blood.

Winkler interprets the evolution of naval aviation as only an acclaimed writer and historian can. He is studied and thorough. His descriptions are extensive, as Langley confronts numerous Japanese vessels in the sea battle for Java. It does not end well for an old coal hauler turned fighting ship. Langley met its end in 1942 off the coast of Java when it was attacked by Japanese aircraft. The crew was rescued, and Langley was scuttled.

As a World War Two history junkie and one who lived two years aboard an aircraft carrier in the late 1950s, I found America's First Aircraft Carrier to be incisive and replete with people and places that recounted America's war in the Pacific Ocean.

USS Langley (CV 1): The Finale (Part 3)

Sailors watch from USS Whipple as Langley is scuttled. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

By Thomas Grubbs

Contributing Writer

 Editor's Note: This is part 3 of the USS Langley series. Click the links to read Part 1 and part 2.

On February 26, 1937, USS Langley, now designated as AG 3, reentered active duty as a member of the Aircraft Scouting Force. It operated out of various West Coast ports and Pearl Harbor before making a brief detour to the Atlantic between February and July 1939. It was then deployed to the Asiatic Fleet some ten weeks later. War would find Langley at Cavite, Philippines.

After the Pearl Harbor attack, Langley fled south, first to Balikpapan in what is now Indonesia and eventually to Darwin, Northern Australia, by early January 1942 where it joined ADBACOM (Australian Dutch British American Command). It would spend the next month assisting the Royal Australian Air Force in anti-submarine patrols off Darwin. On February 22, 1942, Langley would leave on its date with destiny.

Curtiss P-40Es in flight (Wikipedia)

The seaplane tender embarked 32 P-40 Warhawk fighters of the 13^th Pursuit Squadron (Provisional) in Fremantle, Australia, as part of Convoy MS5 bound for Columbo in what is now Sri Lanka. Alongside three further transports and the cargo ship Sea Witch and escorted by the light cruiser USS Phoenix, the convoy was to deliver its war materiel to British forces in India. However, ABDACOM ordered both Langley and Sea Witch to deliver their combined cargo of 59 P-40s to Tjilatjap on the island of Java in a desperate attempt to stem the Japanese tide. Langley would not succeed.

On the morning of February 27, 1942, the tiny convoy, now escorted by destroyers Edsall and Whipple, was spotted by a Japanese reconnaissance plane. In response, 16 G4M Betty bombers attacked from Denpasar airfield, Bali. With the convoy lacking air cover, the Japanese commander, LT Jiro Adachi, ordered a rather leisurely attack on the American ships with Langley drawing the lion’s share of the attention. Apparently enraged at this lack of respect, the tender fought back with a fury worthy of a far larger warship. Coupled with exceptional ship handling, Langley was able to evade the first two attack runs. But the third pass would prove fatal, with five hits and three near misses from 550-lb and 130-lb bombs killing 16 sailors, starting fires, crippling the ship, and inducing a 10-degree list to port. The crippled vessel was abandoned at 1:32 P.M. and scuttled by the escorting destroyers to prevent its capture. 

A torpedo from the destroyer USS Whipple (DD 217) strikes home as the seaplane tender USS Langley is scuttled after being disabled by Japanese bombers on February 27, 1942. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

Of the 485 men rescued, most would be lost when the ship carrying them, oiler USS Pecos, was sunk by the Japanese on March 1 south of Java. Thirty-one more would be lost when the destroyer Edsall was sunk in an epic showdown with two Japanese battleships Kirishima and Hiei that same day, while they were responding the oiler’s distress calls. Thus ended the story of the US Navy’s first aircraft carrier. The valiant sacrifices of ABDACOM bought the time necessary for the United States to prepare a counterpunch against the Japanese, but that is a story for another time.

USS Langley (CV 1): Firsts and an Evolving Mission (Part 2)

 

USS Langley (CV 1) seen in 1924. Note the crowded and narrow flight deck. (National Naval Aviation Museum)

By Thomas Grubbs

Contributing Writer

Ever since the days of the Spanish Armada, warships had been designed to do one thing: pound one another into wreckage with a battery of the largest caliber weapons that could be accommodated aboard. There had, simply put, never been a ship quite like an aircraft carrier in the world’s navies. No one knew what, if any, role such a new vessel could play in the fleet. Was it a scout? A spotter? An offensive weapon in its own right? It would fall to the crew of the new Langley, sporting hull number CV 1, to literally write the book on aircraft carrier operations for the United States Navy.

Vought VE7s take off from Langley in 1927 (Wikimedia Commons)

An Aeromarine 39B plane comes in for landing on Langley's flight deck in 1922. Note no real catwalk, just sailors using safety nets as such. (Naval History and Heritage Command) 

As an experimental vessel, Langley would be the scene of a number of firsts for the Fleet. The era of the aircraft carrier for the US Navy began when a Vought VE7 launched from its decks on October 17, 1922. While not the first time a plane had flown from an American naval vessel, it was the first time it had been done from a ship designed for that purpose. Nine days after this, an Aeromarine 39B safely landed aboard, marking the first time a plane had landed on the carrier. Langley would officially join the fleet in January 1923 and spend the rest of that year touring the East Coast from Norfolk to Bar Harbor, Maine, demonstrating the Navy’s new weapon to admiring crowds. Many came simply to watch the aircraft take off and land on the vessel’s flight deck.

Visitors look at a Curtiss F6C fighter plane aboard Langley in October 1926 (Naval History and Heritage Command)

Langley would join the Pacific Fleet in 1924, participating in the annual fleet exercises until the middle 1930s, during which experiments in everything from flight deck operations to mock attacks on the battleline of capital ships would be conducted. It even found time to play a starring role in the silent film The Flying Fleet released in 1929. Sadly, newer and larger ships such as Lexington (CV 2), Ranger (CV 4), and Enterprise (CV 6) soon relegated Langley to an auxiliary role.

Langley (bottom) dwarfed by USS Saratoga (CV 3- middle) and USS Lexington (CV 2-top) at Bremerton, Washington around 1930. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

Since the end of World War One, Imperial Japan was seen as the most likely future opponent of the US Navy. The vast reaches of the Pacific presented a conundrum in the pre and early aviation era: how does one locate the enemy fleet? The answer was seaplanes: these amphibious aircraft and their accompanying tender could turn any sheltered tropical lagoon into a fully functioning airbase in a matter of hours. No longer capable of operating in its designed role, Langley became an ideal candidate for conversion into a seaplane tender thanks to a roomy design and already installed aircraft maintenance and operation facilities.

Langley seen after conversion to a seaplane tender in 1937. The ship was re-designated with the hull number AV 3. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

This conversion took place at Mare Island California between October 1936 and February 1937. The new tender, with hull number AV 3, would spend the next two years operating out of various ports on the West Coast, scouting for the fleet’s battleships and cruisers. But fate had a curve ball in store for the little tender. War clouds were gathering on the horizon and Langley would soon face its sternest test.

USS Langley (CV 1): The Beginning (Part One)

USS Langley (CV 1) with battleships of the fleet in the 1920s. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

By Thomas Grubbs
Contributing Writer

A collier was perhaps the most unprepossessing vessel afloat. Mostly empty space, it plodded from one port to another laden with coal, metallic ores or other bulky cargoes, fuel for the economy. But one collier, laid down as USS Jupiter (AC 3) on October 18, 1911 at Mare Island Naval Yard in Vallejo, California, would go on to become a nautical trailblazer.

The collier USS Jupiter (AC 3) seen in 1913. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

The second of four sister ships, Jupiter was the first vessel in the fleet to be powered by a turbo electric drive. After being commissioned on April 7, 1913, it spent time with the Pacific Fleet before passing through the Panama Canal on Columbus Day 1914, becoming the first ship to transit the Canal from west to east in the process. It would spend the prewar and the First World War years engaged in the hum drum life of a naval collier, enlivened only by a pair of voyages to France in June 1917 and November 1918 carrying a detachment of 129 naval aviators. After supplying coaling services to ships transporting the American Expeditionary Force home, it returned to Norfolk for decommissioning on August 17, 1918. But its story was not to end there.

After the end of the First World War, the five great naval powers gathered in Washington D.C. in early 1921 to attempt to prevent another ruinous naval arms race like that that had led to the recently ended conflict. Most of the resulting arms treaty, colloquially known as the Washington Treaty, dealt with the battleship: entirely appropriate given that vessel’s then central role in the Fleet. However, recent wartime experience had revealed that ship-based aircraft could prove decisive in any future conflict. Therefore, each of the signatories were allowed to convert for experimental purposes several already existing vessels into aircraft carriers under Article VII of the Treaty.

Langley (ex-Jupiter) being converted at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in 1921 (National Naval Aviation Museum via wikipedia)

Because of its relative newness and ease of conversion, Jupiter was chosen to become America’s first aircraft carrier. Renamed Langley after an aviation pioneer on April 11, 1920, the collier would spend the next two years undergoing an extensive conversion at Norfolk Naval Shipyard. It would eventually be recommissioned as USS Langley (CV 1) on March 20, 1922 as an aviation trials ship. Data on everything from flight deck procedures to arrestor gear collected over its career would be the basis for the great carrier fleet that would lead America to victory a generation later. Under the command of Commander Kenneth Whiting, who had originally proposed the conversion of a collier to a carrier, the little Langley set out to face the future.

USS Langley with aircraft aboard in the 1920s (Wikimedia commons)

Seventy-Five Years Ago: A Lesser Known Wreck on the Java Coast--USS Langley

By Elijah Palmer

Hampton Roads Naval Museum Educator

A torpedo from the destroyer USS Whipple (DD-217) strikes home as the seaplane tender USS Langley (AV-3) is scuttled after being disabled by Japanese bombers on February 27, 1942. (Naval History and Heritage Command, NH 92476)

While much attention has been rightfully given to USS Houston (CA-30), the "Galloping Ghost of the Java Coast," after the discovery of her wreck in 2014, there are several other World War II wrecks along the Java Coast. One of these is the USS Langley (ASV-3), once famed for being the first American aircraft carrier.

The former fuel ship USS Jupiter (AC-3) undergoes conversion into the US Navy's first aircraft carrier, USS Langley (CV-1) at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in 1921.  While attempting to ferry fighter aircraft and their pilots from Australia to the island of Java, Langley, by then a seaplane tender, was lost after a Japanese aerial attack on February 27, 1942.  (Hampton Roads Naval Museum file)

Japanese GM4 "Betty" bomber.

Just before noon on February 27, 1942, Commander Robert McConnell watched as Japanese GM4 "Betty" bombers began their attack on his ship, USS Langley. Anticipating the bombers' aim, McConnell ordered the seaplane tender back and forth, successfully dodging the first two attacks. Yet the ship's luck would not hold for long.

USS Langley transits the Panama Canal in 1924 on her way to the Pacific Ocean.  As USS Jupiter a decade before, she had made history, transiting in the other direction, as the first US Navy ship to use the canal.  (Hampton Roads Naval Museum file)

USS Langley's insignia (Wikimedia Commons)

Langley started life as the collier USS Jupiter (AC-3), serving the fleet through World War I. With the Navy shifting to using oil for fuel, and the value of military aviation shown during the war, Jupiter was slated for a new role. In 1920 the ship was ordered to the Norfolk Navy Yard and was converted into the first American aircraft carrier, being renamed USS Langley (CV-1) in 1922. The ship was the only carrier in the fleet until USS Lexington (CV-2) was commissioned in 1927.

USS Langley in 1928.

By 1937, with new and improved carriers in the fleet, Langley was converted into a seaplane tender and reclassified as ASV-3. The conversion changed the ship's appearance dramatically as half of the flight deck was removed. Cranes were used to transfer seaplanes from the water to the deck. Seaplanes were used for both long range reconnaissance and for search and rescue missions, and thus were especially useful in the Pacific.

Langley after conversion to seaplane tender.

After Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941, the United States joined the war in the Pacific. The early months of 1942 were a tumultuous time, with the Allies struggling to check any advances of the Imperial Japanese forces. By early February, Singapore fell in a disastrous defeat for the British, and American forces were fighting desperately on the Bataan peninsula in the Philippines. USS Langley was ordered to transport over thirty critically needed P-40 "Warhawk" fighter planes from Australia to the Dutch East Indies (what is now Indonesia). On February 27, the ship met its destroyer escorts, USS Whipple (DD-217) and USS Edsall (DD-219), south of the island of Java. A few hours later, the ships were under attack by Japanese air units.

While the destroyers, with their higher speed, could largely evade the mid-altitude bombers, Langley was never meant for high speed maneuvers. Besides this, the extra weight topside from the stowed fighters bogged down the ship. Once the bombers missed the seaplane tender during the first two passes, they changed tactics and bracketed the ship with bombs, so that there was nowhere to turn. Langley was hit with five bombs, severely damaging the ship, while killing 16 and wounding countless others. About two hours after the attack commenced, Commander McConnell gave the order to abandon ship. The destroyers picked up the survivors, and scuttled the marred ship with torpedoes and shellfire.

Sailors watch from Whipple as Langley is scuttled. (Naval History and Heritage Command, NH 92475)

A Memphis, Tennessee newspaper's headline about the Langley, Pecos, and other ships. Note that this reporting was over a month after these ships had been sunk. 

Many survivors were soon after transferred to the USS Pecos (AO-6), which unfortunately was sunk a few days later with two thirds of those on board perishing. Edsall also went down soon after in a lopsided battle against heavy Japanese forces. During this stage of the war, many ships of the Asiatic fleet were turned into "ghosts" as the Japanese held a heavy advantage. USS Langley was an unfortunate victim of this situation, but her sister ships would exact their revenge later in 1942.

The Cyclops and the Lion

By Joseph Miechle
Hampton Roads Naval Museum Educator


When the Great White Fleet departed Norfolk in 1907 on its around the world voyage, an immense amount of planning was necessarily involved. The new battleships were steam powered and required massive amounts of coal. A battleship traveling at 16 knots required 338 pounds of coal per minute to maintain speed, and the fleet generally consumed roughly 7,200 tons of coal per day. The supply ships of the era could not provide this type of replenishment at sea and the Navy relied on friendly ports of call to meet demands. The Navy concluded that should a global conflict emerge, its ships would be vulnerable should they run out of fuel in unfriendly waters.

In response to these logistical challenges, the Navy developed the Proteus-class of colliers to address the growing demand for fuel for a global fleet and in doing so, unintentionally helped generate some of the greatest nautical mythology of the 20^th century. Enter the infamous USS Cyclops (AC-4). She was launched in 1910 and saw service prior to World War I with the Naval Auxiliary Service. The ship's first and only captain was Lieutenant Commander George Worley. Cyclops supplied US warships with the coal they needed throughout the Atlantic area until the United States entered World War I on April 6, 1917.  She was officially commissioned as a US Navy vessel less than a month later but continued to serve the Navy rather ordinarily until sometime after departing Barbados for Baltimore, Maryland on March 4, 1918.  Somewhere along her route she seemingly vanished from the earth.  Speculation about what could have become of the ship and Worley began almost immediately.  

  

Because the United States had officially entered World War I, and Worley was thought to be of German descent and a known German sympathizer, some speculated that he had sailed his ship (laden with manganese ore) to waiting German agents and surrendered it to them. There were also stories that the collier may have been sunk by German U-boats operating in the Atlantic Ocean or by a bomb being smuggled aboard in Brazil. These theories disintegrated when no U-boats claimed to sink the ship and neither the crew nor ship emerged from Germany after the war.  There was also a theory that the crew had mutinied against Worley because of his abrasive command.  Cyclops was also carrying a few prisoners, and some stories included a prisoner uprising. These theories all failed to hold water. 

USS Cyclops was featured in the movie The Bermuda Triangle (1978). 

Postwar theories as to what happed to Cyclops evolved from the mysterious to the absurd. These included natural phenomena such as cyclones, rogue waves, extreme weather, and methane bubbles from the ocean floor affecting the ship’s buoyancy.  The supernatural theories were some of the most spectacular because the ship was presumed to have been lost in the infamous maritime anomaly known as the Bermuda Triangle.  Theories include alien abductions, gigantic sea monsters, time travel, and capture by citizens of the Lost City of Atlantis. There is little evidence to support such outlandish hypotheses, so what really happened to the Cyclops? No trace of the ship nor crew has ever been found.

When Cyclops departed Bahia, Brazil in February 1918, it is known that one of the ships' engines was not operational.  The ship was also loaded (perhaps improperly) with an unfamiliar, and much denser, load of manganese ore as opposed to the coal it was designed to transport.  Merchant captains operating near the Bahamas, where Cyclops is thought to have been operating, reported heavy seas and a sudden cyclone.  As the Proteus-class ship was reported to list excessively in heavy seas, rough seas and an unstable load probably caused the ship to completely roll over at night and quickly plunge beneath the sea. The theory of rapid sinking is strengthened by the fact that no distress call was ever heard from the ship. The storms might also explain why no flotsam from Cyclops was found, as sailors would have lashed most everything down.

The mysterious George W. Worley.  

To perpetuate the strange history of Cyclops we should mention that all four Proteus-class ships built were lost to extraordinary circumstances.  USS Proteus and USS Nereus were both sold to Canada and disappeared without a trace in the Atlantic Ocean less than a month apart in 1941. The fourth ship of the class, USS Jupiter, was converted to the U.S. Navy's first aircraft carrier, USS Langley, in 1920 and after her conversion to a seaplane tender was lost to enemy action in the Pacific Ocean in 1942.
 

In 1973, a former Navy diver claimed that while diving in search of USS Scorpion (SSN-589) in 1969, he stood on the deck of USS Cyclops off the coast of Virginia. Was this an exaggeration? Was it Cyclops or perhaps one of her sister ships? The verdict is still open as USS Scorpion was later located at another location and the U.S. Navy ceased recovery operations in the area. This only added fodder to the mystery of Cyclops’ ultimate fate.

Fascination with the Bermuda Triangle and the craft associated with its mysteries continues to grow.  But what has any of this to do with a lion?  To add further controversy to the already epic stories surrounding USS Cyclops, we are presented a fascinating sidebar to history. 


At the time, it was not unusual for U.S. Navy ships to have mascots.  Cats, dogs, and goats typically filled these roles.  There were, however, more exotic mascots representing our warships and shore stations a century ago.  USS Langley featured a honey bear (also known as a kinkajou), a turkey kept watch with a goat named Billy aboard USS Louisiana, and a black bear going by the name of Whiskey could once be found at Naval Air Station Norfolk.  But perhaps the most outrageous ship mascot of them all sailed aboard USS Cyclops.  Lt. Cmdr. Worley apparently obtained a lion names Teddy in Rio de Janeiro at some point prior to December 1910, which he then brought aboard ship.  The Navy did not approve and Worley advertised in newspapers for a zoo to take custody of the 150 pound beast that, “[P]lays with the men like a kitten would.”  The fate of the lion, like the Cyclops, remains unknown.