Famous Military Units

The USS Langley (CV-1), as the first carrier vessel in the U.S. Navy, was pivotal in the history of naval aviation warfare. It served as a test bed for developing procedures and technologies still used on aircraft carriers today. It was originally nicknamed “Covered Wagon” by its crew due to its appearance. Following World War I, the growing importance of aviation in naval warfare led to authorization to convert the USS Jupiter (AC-3), a collier (coal tender), into an aircraft carrier on 11 Jul 1919. The conversion was carried out at the Norfolk Navy Yard, involving the addition of a flight deck and aircraft elevators. The large coal holds of the collier proved suitable for conversion into aircraft hangars. The retrofitted ship’s dimensions were 542 ft. length, sixty-six ft. beam, draft of twenty-four ft. with a displacement of more than 15,000 tons; fully loaded, it carried twenty-two to thirty-six aircraft and four .50-cal. deck guns. The carrier could make about 15 knots, and its full complement (including the air arm) was 468. On 11 Apr 1920, the ship was renamed USS Langley (CV-1) in honor of aviation pioneer Samuel Pierpont Langley, an American scientist and inventor, and was recommissioned on March 20, 1922.