32 Fighters On Deck and Not One Could Take Off

USS Langley, America’s first aircraft carrier, helped invent U.S. naval aviation, but by 1942, the ship that had once launched America’s first carrier aircraft could no longer launch fighters at all. Converted years earlier into a seaplane tender with part of her flight deck removed, Langley was ordered on a desperate mission to carry 32 assembled P-40E Warhawks and 33 Army pilots to Java as Japanese forces closed in on the island. Until they reached land, every fighter aboard was nothing more than cargo. After delays left Langley exposed in daylight, 16 Japanese Betty bombers escorted by 15 Zeros found her just 75 miles from her destination. With no fighter cover available, Commander Robert McConnell relied on timing and radical maneuvering, waiting until the first bombs had actually been released before ordering a hard turn that caused the opening attack to miss. But the Japanese came again. This time bombs smashed into Langley, severed steering connections, destroyed her fire main, and set the P-40s packed across her decks ablaze. As Zeros strafed the crippled ship, McConnell personally took over a .50-caliber machine gun, remembered by one survivor as firing “as coolly as if he were shooting ducks.” With flooding threatening the electric motors that powered her propellers, sailors desperately pushed the surviving Warhawks overboard to reduce the ship’s worsening list. Eventually both motors shorted out, leaving Langley dead in the water and forcing her crew to abandon ship. Her escorts then fired shells and torpedoes into the dying vessel before leaving her roughly 74 miles from Java. The cruelest part was that even the 27 P-40s that reached Java aboard another ship never flew a combat mission, they were destroyed before Japanese forces could capture them. This is the tragic story of America’s first aircraft carrier and the final mission she was never built to fight. -- As images and footage of actual events are not always available, Dark Seas sometimes utilizes similar historical images and footage for dramatic effect. I do my best to keep it as visually accurate as possible. All content on Dark Seas is researched, produced, and presented in historical context for educational purposes. We are history enthusiasts and are not always experts in some areas, so please don't hesitate to reach out to us with corrections, additional information, or new ideas.