On October 26, 1922, an Aeromarine headed straight for the stern of a strange-looking vessel that was half-ship, half-bridge. Lt. Commander Godfrey deCourcelles Chevalier released a cable in the cockpit that lowered a rigid trailing hook from the belly of his plane. A few feet off the ship’s deck, flying close to 60 mph, he engaged the first of a series of cross cables designed to bring the Aeromarine to a quick stop. Although he landed too abruptly and smashed his propeller, he didn’t nose over completely. The flight crew cheered as Chevalier stood up in the cockpit. He had just made the first landing on the U.S. Navy’s first aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Langley.

The Langley was truly a ship of firsts. Commissioned in 1912 as the collier Jupiter, she was the Navy’s first electrically propelled vessel. But her greatest days lay ahead. In 1919, the Navy converted the ship for use as the first aircraft carrier. A steel bridge was constructed atop the hull of the Jupiter to serve as the flight deck. Holds were refitted to handle airplanes, and an elevator was built amidships to lower planes for storage as they landed. Skeptics became believers as the Langley proved to be steadier than a battleship.

Other “firsts” for the Langley included the initial catapult launching, torpedo plane landing, night landing, and autogyro landing. In 1942, while delivering P-40s to Allied forces in the Dutch East Indies, enemy aircraft attacked the Langley. She was abandoned and sunk, but she is remembered for her pioneering contributions to naval aviation.