Whiting, clearly thinking ahead, took note of the ship’s large cargo holds, one of the few Navy ships with space roomy enough to accommodate aircraft. Normally, the Jupiter was in the unglamorous business of refueling other ships with coal, but it assumed other duties during the war, carrying both cargo and personnel. Three years later, his aviation unit was transported to France aboard a Navy collier, the USS Jupiter. He was designated Naval Aviator No.16 in September 1914. Seeking new challenges, Whiting was one of the first to join the nascent aviation branch and had the distinction of being the last naval aviator trained by Orville Wright. Climbing aboard his submarine after it had surfaced, he simply remarked, “It’s easy.” Earlier in his career, as a young submarine skipper stationed in the Philippines, Whiting had made a name for himself by demonstrating that submarine crews could save themselves by exiting a submerged sub through a torpedo tube. One was Commander Kenneth Whiting, a quiet, well-respected naval aviator who had commanded the Navy’s first aeronautic detachment when it deployed to France during World War I. Naval Aviator Number 16īut there were also forward-thinking naval officers who believed that ship-based aircraft would one day prove useful beyond their scouting roles. Whiting spearheaded the effort to transform the vessel into America’s first aircraft carrier, the USS Langley. While the war had convinced Navy brass that airplanes were indeed essential, many senior naval officers believed aviation had little value to the fleet beyond scouting and observing the fall of shot for battleships. “In America’s case, that became the Langley,” says Zingheim. This successful effort did not go unnoticed by certain American and Japanese naval observers who began to visualize experimenting with specialized “airplane carrier” ships that could both launch and then recover aircraft. The ship-borne air attack was a complete surprise to the Germans, who had previously thought the base beyond reach of British aircraft. In July 1918, seven Sopwith Camels from HMS Furious launched on a daring early morning raid from the North Sea, destroying two Zeppelins at the Tondern airship base, from which Germany had also been conducting night bombing raids over Britain. “Germany’s Zeppelin fleet was causing all kinds of problems for the British in the North Sea as long-range eyes in the sky tracking their fleet movements.” “The British were reluctantly forced to take airplanes to sea to fight Zeppelins,” says USS Midway Museum historian Karl Zingheim. Upon completion of a mission, pilots would either land ashore or-if unable-ditch alongside to hopefully be fished out of the water. The Royal Navy also experimented with launching wheeled aircraft off wood platforms grafted onto warships. The First World War was a proving ground for naval aviation, when both British and American shore-based seaplane units were tasked with flying anti-submarine patrols. Navy’s first generation of carrier aviators. Langley showed it could be done, and then trained the U.S. The Langley was an experiment to see if aircraft could operate effectively off ships. This year, the carrier celebrates its 100th birthday, born in the form of the USS Langley, a plodding little flattop commissioned in 1922. They’ve been called “Cities at Sea.” Crewed by as many as 5,000 sailors and measuring more than 1,000 feet long, an aircraft carrier is a floating air base able to project power almost anywhere in the world, carrying as many as 90 aircraft. Navy commissioned the USS Langley-an ungainly new ship that would forever change military aviation.
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