with the fleet. It was a humble beginning, but Eugene Ely's barnstorming stunt had started something very much bigger than that.
The First Flattop: The Conversion of the USS Langley (CV-1)
Stunts were one thing, but making naval aviation a credible military force was something else entirely. During World War I, U.S. naval aviation was primarily seaplanes used for gunnery spotting and antisubmarine patrols. However, the British achieved some fascinating results using normal (wheeled) pursuit aircraft (fighters) launched from towed barges, and later from specially built aircraft carriers converted from the hulls of other ships. These aircraft attacked German Zeppelin hangars and other targets.[6] The benefits of taking high-performance aircraft to sea were so obvious to the British that the Royal Navy rapidly set to converting further ships into aircraft carriers. This move did not go unnoticed by other Naval powers after World War I. By 1919, the Japanese were also constructing a purpose-built carrier, the Hosho. Meanwhile the British continued their program of converting hulls into aircraft carriers, and began work on their own from-the-keel-up carrier, the Hermes.
Eugene Ely flies off of the USS Pennsylvania at 3 P.M. on November 14th, 1910. This was the moment of birth for naval aviation. OFFICIAL U.S. NAVY PHOTO These programs spurred the General Board of the U.S. Navy to start its own aircraft carrier program. In 1919, the board allocated funds to convert a surplus collier, the USS Jupiter, into the Navy's first aircraft carrier, the USS Langley (CV-1)-nicknamed the 'Covered Wagon' by her crew. For the next two decades, the little Langley provided the first generation of U.S. carrier aviators with their initial carrier training, and offered the fleet a platform to experiment with the combat use of aircraft carriers. When World War II arrived, the slow little ship was converted into a transport for moving aircraft to forward bases, and was sunk during the fighting around the Java barrier in 1942. However, the Langley remains a beloved memory for the men who learned the naval aviation trade aboard her.
The Washington Naval Treaty: The Birth of the Modern Aircraft Carrier
While the Langley was primarily a test and training vessel, her initial trials led the Navy leadership to build larger aircraft carriers that could actually serve with the battle fleet. The problem was finding the money to build these new ships. The early 1920's were hardly the time to request funds for a new and unproved naval technology, when the fleet was desperately trying to hold onto the modern battleships constructed during the First World War. The solution came after the five great naval powers (the United States, Great Britain, Japan, France, and Italy) signed the world's first arms-control treaty at the Washington Naval Conference of 1922. Though the treaty set quotas and limits on all sorts of warship classes, including aircraft carriers, a bit of fine print provided all the signatories with the opportunity to get 'something for nothing.'
The USS Langley (CV-1), the U.S. Navy's first aircraft carrier. She was converted from the collier Jupiter. She served as a floating laboratory for U.S. naval aviation into the 1930s, and was subsequently sunk in 1942 during the Battle of the Java Sea. OFFICIAL U.S. NAVY PHOTO FROM THE COLLECTION OF A. D. BAKER At the end of the war, several countries were constructing heavy battleships and battle cruisers,[7] which were still unfinished in the early 1920's. Meanwhile, the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty set limits on the maximum allowable displacement and gun size of individual ships, as well as a total quota of tonnage available to each signatory nation (the famous 5:5:3 ratio).[8] Even after scrapping older dreadnought-era battleships, the nations within the agreement were left with no room for building new battleships and battle cruisers (which were classed together because of gun size). However, the treaty allowed the signatories to convert a percentage of their allowable carrier tonnage from the hulls of the uncompleted capital ships. What made this especially attractive was that the new carriers could be armed with the same 8-in/203mm gun armament as a heavy cruiser. Thus, even if the aircraft carriers themselves proved to be unsuccessful, those heavy cruiser guns would still make the ships useful.
The British had already converted their tonnage quota with the Furious, Courageous, Glorious, and Eagle, while the Japanese converted their new carriers from the uncompleted battle cruiser Akagi and the battleship Kaga. The American vessels, however, were something special. The U.S. Navy wanted its two new carriers to be the biggest, fastest, and most capable in the world. The starting points were a pair of partially completed battle cruiser hulls. Already christened the Lexington and Saratoga, they were converted into the ships that the fledgling naval air arm had always dreamed of. When commissioned in 1927, the Lexington (CV-2) and Saratoga (CV-3) were not only the largest (36,000-tons displacement), fastest (thirty-five knots), most powerful warships in the world, (most important) they could operate up to ninety aircraft, twice the capacity of the Japanese or British carriers.[9] The Lexington and Saratoga also featured a number of new design features (such as the now-familiar 'island' structures, which contained the bridge, flight control stations, and uptakes for the engineering exhausts), which greatly improved their efficiency and usefulness. The treaty-mandated gun turrets were placed in four mounts fore and aft of the island structure.
The aircraft carriers Saratoga (CV-3, in the foreground) and Lexington (CV-2, in the background) together near Diamond Head, Hawaii. At the time this was taken, the two converted battle cruisers were the largest, fastest, and most powerful warships in the world. OFFICIAL U.S. NAVY PHOTO FROM THE COLLECTION OF A. D. BAKER With the commissioning of the Lexington and Saratoga (and parallel rapid strides in naval aircraft design), the U.S. Navy took the world lead in naval aviation development. Virtually all of the American leaders who commanded carriers and air units during the Second World War served their early tours of duty aboard the two giant carriers. In addition, the series of fleet problems (war games) involving the Lexington and Saratoga led to the tactics America would take into the coming Pacific war with Japan.
The Taranto Raid and the Sinking of the Battleship Bismarck
Always leaders in the development of naval aviation technology and tactics, the British had planned for and assimilated the aircraft carrier into their fleet long before the opening of the Second World War. This was not merely institutional integration, for there were also plans for potential wartime carrier operations. One of these plans, devised in the 1930s, involved a surprise strike against the Italian battle fleet based at Taranto harbor in southern Italy: A carrier force would approach at night, launch torpedo bombers, and sink the Italian battleships at their moorings.
The opportunity to implement the plan came soon after the Italian declaration of war on Great Britain (in June of 1940) and the fall of France (later that summer). Despite the highly aggressive efforts of the British
