Source: United States Navy
PACIFIC OCEAN. – It started as an ambitious experiment. Cmdr. Kenneth Whiting, a respected naval aviator, initiated the idea to convert a cargo ship into a vessel able “to take planes around with the fleet.” Two years later, on March 20, 1922, the former USS Jupiter (Collier #3) recommissioned as the USS Langley (CV 1), the U.S. Navy’s first aircraft carrier.