A century ago.
Official period caption: “U.S. Aeroplane Carrier Langley in Gaillard Cut, Panama Canal, Nov 16, 1924.”
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) photo. NARA Identifier: 100996474; Local Identifier: 185-G-947; Agency-Assigned Identifier: 80-C139; Container ID: Box 5, Volume 10. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/100996474
Seen passing through the Culebra (Gaillard) Cut, the 14,000-ton USS Langley (CV-1) was on her way to join the Pacific Fleet after two years as an experimental ship on the East Coast. The nation’s only operational aircraft carrier, she has Vought VE-7 Bluebirds of Fighter Plane Squadron One (VF-1) forward. The VF-1 Bluebirds had made the first-ever take-off from a U.S. carrier just two years before this photo when LT Virgil Childers Griffin (Naval Aviator # 41) lifted off from Langley in his VE-7-SF on 17 October 1922.
Further aft, with their wings folded, are at least two large Liberty-powered Douglas DT-2 torpedo bombers, aircraft that struggled to take off from Langley’s 534-foot deck– until a catapult arrangement was worked out.
Langley arrived at San Diego on 29 November to join the Pacific Battle Fleet and for the next 12 years operated off the California coast and Hawaii, engaged in training fleet units, experimentation, pilot training, and tactical fleet problems.
USS Langley (CV-1). Docked at the carrier pier at Naval Air Station, North Island, San Diego, California, with a Douglas DT-2 airplane taking off from her flight deck. This photo may have been taken during catapult tests in 1925. NH 47024
Langley. A group of officers on the flight deck during the Hawaii cruise of 1925. The aircraft immediately behind them appears to be a Vought VE-7. NH 72940
Langley. Night flying exercises at Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, in July 1925. Courtesy of Lieutenant Gustave Freret, USN (Ret), 1972. NH 78325
By August 1926 she was carrying the Navy’s first full-fledged carrier airwing, consisting of two squadrons of F6C-1 Goshawks of VF-1 and VF-2B, Curtiss SC-2 torpedo bombers of VT-2, and assorted support planes of Utility Squadron 1 (VJ-1): Martin MO-1 three-seat observation monoplanes, Boeing NB-1 trainers, and PN-7 seaplanes.
Langley was converted to a more humble seaplane tender in 1937, by which time the Navy had the mammoth 36,000-ton large deck carriers USS Lexington (CV-2) and Saratoga (CV-3); the first keel-up designed fleet carrier, the 17,000-ton USS Ranger (CV-4); and the three new 22,000-ton Yorktown class carriers well under construction.
The torch had been passed.