Carrier Context:
History

  Famous Carriers

Carrier has air conditioned its fair share of ships including aircraft and cargo carriers. The crew of the first aircraft carrier, however, enjoyed little in the way of creature comforts.

That first aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Langley, began life in 1912 as a coal carrier or collier named the U.S.S. Jupiter. On October 10, 1914, the Jupiter became the first U.S. Navy ship to pass through the Panama Canal. It was also the first ship to land a U.S. military unit — 129 men from an aeronautical detachment — in France. That was in 1917.

In the summer of 1919, the Jupiter was picked for conversion to an aircraft carrier. Most of the ship’s superstructure was demolished and a 60-foot-wide wooden deck was installed for nearly her entire 542-foot length. The ship was recommissioned as the Langley in March, 1922, but the first takeoff from the ship’s deck wasn’t made until October 17. The first landing wasn’t until October 26. Since a lieutenant named Virgil Griffin made the first takeoff and the first landing was made by a different pilot, Lt. Cmdr. Godfrey de Chevalier, it can be assumed the first plane landed ashore rather than flying around for nine days.

Until 1927 when two new aircraft carriers were built, the Langleyís witnessed every first in naval aviation. The first aircraft were catapulted from her decks. The first night landing was made in 1925. The first blind landing in 1935.

The Langley finished her career as a seaplane tender. She was delivering airplanes to Java in 1942 when a flight of Japanese bombers set the ship afire. After being abandoned, she was sunk by gunfire from an American destroyer.

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