The Dual Tragedies of USS Langley (CV-1/AV-3) and USS Pecos I (AO-6).

The loss of the United States' first-ever carrier, USS Langley (CV-1) later (AV-3) and the subsequent loss of the USS Pecos I (AO-6) with the survivors of the Langley on board was a dual tragedy in late February and early March of 1942.

The Langley was enroute from Fremantle, Austrailia to Indonesia (The Dutch East Indes) carrying about 32 Curtic P-40 Warhawks to Java for the joint American, British, Dutch and Australian command to use. USS Langley was accompanied by a large convoy but eventually left with two destroyer escorts, the Whipple (DD-217) and the Edsall (DD-219) and the Sea Witch, a freighter carrying 27 more Curtis P-40s headed for the Javan port town of Tjilajap.

On the 27th of February, 1942 the four ships were spotted and attacked by three 3-plane flights of Japanese land-based G4M Betty bombers flying out of Bali which attacked the ships about 75 miles (120 km) out of Tjilapjap. The USS Langley avoided the first two attacks by six Betty bombers but the third struck home with five bombs from the three attackers striking home. The Langley was badly damaged with many aircraft destroyed on deck. She was on fire and listed badly to the port as sea water had flooded some of her compartments including her engine rooms. So she was dead in the water and her commanding officer ordered her surviving crew to abandon ship where they were picked up by the escorting destroyers. It was determined that USS Langley could not be salvaged and she was sunk by torpedo fire and gun fire from the Whipple some hours later.

Some three to four days later the two destroyers rendezvoused with the empty fuel tender USS Pecos I (AO-6) but were again spotted and attacked by aircraft from the Japanese (IJN) Carrier Soryu. At about noon on March 1st, 1942, planes from the Soryu attacked Pecos I and struck again about an hour later. Finally some time in mid-afternoon, a third strike sent the veteran but empty oiler to the bottom. The destroyers Whipple and Edsall raced to the scene and rescued 232 survivors.

16 seamen from the USS Langley died or were presumed dead in the attack on the cartier/plane-tender. I have not been able to suss out how many more died when the Pecos I was sunk (about 400 were lost in total) and about 232 were rescued, nor the number of crew lost by the Pecos I itself. The fate of the freighter Sea Witch is unclear to me at the time of this posting.

1942: February 27: Loss of USS Langley (AV-3)

Pecos I (AO-6)

The short, historic life of the US Navy's first aircraft carrier

My question to you all is, "How representative of the early stages of the Pacific theatre of war were these two connected tragedies as the Japanese blitzkrieg by sea was happening? I am aware of the many territorial setbacks suffered by the allies in this period but how bad was it at sea? My sense is that it was very grim based on losses suffered by the Royal Navy at this time (which I am more familiar with), but did the other allies fair any better?

Very respectfully.
Evilroddy.

 

It is quite representative of the war around the Philippines, East Indies, Indian Ocean. Japanese naval air and surface units ran rampant. Kido Butai,1st Air Fleet - Wikipedia the Japanese combined carrier strike fleet, raided Darwin, and raided into the Indian Ocean, Indian Ocean raid - Wikipedia, hitting British shipping. The Japanese Betty G4M and Nell G3M land-based bombers had excellent range and a very effective torpedo. British "Force Z" lost the BB Prince of Wales and BC Repulse off Malaya, to land-based air.
Battle of Java Sea-Battle of the Java Sea - Wikipedia
2d Battle of Java Sea-Second Battle of the Java Sea - Wikipedia
Dutch East Indies campaign - Wikipedia

 

As an addendum to the OP, the MS-Sea Witch was damaged but made it to Tjilajap, Java, delivered its cargo of 27 Curtis P-40E Warhawks and survived the war while serving as a US Army supply ship.

Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.

 

USMCPrice:

Yes, that's what I thought based on the drubbings the rump Dutch Navy and the British Royal Navy took in this period. It was pretty much a turkey-shoot for the IJN and its supporting arms during the Dutch East Indies Campaign. The chaos, diverging agendas and infighting in the command structure of the four-nation joint ABDA command didn't help either.

Thanks for the links.

Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.

 

LRusso216:

A very enlightening video. Thank you for posting it. I learned a lot and am now finding literary sources to flesh it out. It begs the question on the positives and negatives of this particular kind of strictly heirarchical kind of training which the Kido Butai received but there is no doubt that they were thoroughly trained and collectively made a formidable force in the eastward-looking maritime part of the early Pacific War. The question of how this training affected initiative and innovation arises however.

The other questions that comes up in my mind are, "Was the eastward-looking maritime empire strategy compatible with the westward-looking Asian empire strategy preferred by the IJA? Which might have maximised benefits and mitigated risks to Imperial Japan the best? Were the Dutch East Indies oilfields worth awakening the American Colossus from its isolationist slumber?"

Here is a good, albeit long video (53+ minutes long), examining competing Japanese grand strategies from the Meiji Restoration in the second half of the 19th Century to the end of WWII. It's well worth a watch in my humble opinion. I think it will foster good discussion in either this or other future threads down the road.



Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.

 

Good video Lou, thanks for sharing. However, I do have a couple of bones to pick with some of the points made. 1.) I think the surface fleet/carrier fleet schism is overplayed. All major navies were struggling with the same issue, the surface fleet proponent's vs the upstart carrier/airpower advocates. The United States had the decision made for them when Kido Butai crippled the battleline of the US surface fleet at Pearl Harbor. The US had to shift primacy to the carriers. While the Imperial Navy/Imperial Army relationship did hamper their war effort, I don't see the same effect on naval operations. During the critical period Admiral Yamamoto managed to strike an effective balance between the different camps, surface and naval air. By the time of his death the question was moot, Japanese airpower both carrier and land based had been so highly attritted in quality, numbers and experience during the early carrier battles and the Guadalcanal Campaign that it could not/would not be a decisive factor going forward.
The focus on Admiral Nagumo Chūichi coming from the surface fleet side and being overly cautious is again, IMHO, overplayed. He did a decent job during the heyday of Kido Butai. However, it should be noted that the early war US carrier admirals were black shoe navy as well. Both Frank Fletcher and Raymond Spruance came from the surface fleet side, neither were Naval Aviators. Fletcher has also been criticized, like Nagumo with being overly cautious. The perception was strong enough that, after the Eastern Solomons, the CNO, Admiral King sidelined him, and never returned him to carrier command.

Good discussion started, I hope Takao, Carronade and R Leonard stop by and chime in!

Just FYI Evilroddy, IIRC, R Leonard's father was a naval aviator (USNA 1938), served at Midway on the USS Yorktown, briefly on the Enterprise, and retired as an Admiral.

 

USMCPrice:

Regarding the bolded section of the quote above.

I looked up the rear-admiral on the Arlington National Cemetary page. A very impressive fellow from the description and citations quoted on the page. The thing that struck me the most was how young he looked in his picture as a rear-admiral. Men grew up fast in the 1940's or died young I reckon. Thanks for the heads up.

Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.

 

LRusso216:

Yes, you seem to be right on the money there. On a few occasions the IJN and the IJA were forced to cooperate but either one or the other always lent underwhelming support to the rival. Wake Island comes to mind where the army sent only two unspecialised troop transports to support this navy operation. Things were generally so bad that the IJA eventually developed its own pre-war and wartime amphibious landing/assault force but the IJN did what they could to thwart or derail the IJA acquiring these specialised ships and boats.

Here is a 24+ minute long video describing the IJA's amphibious landing/assault forces and the relentless infighting between the IJN and the IJA over this capacity. The narrator can come off as a bit flippant at times, but from what I have read he seems to get it right, sans sarcasm.



Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.

 

The video maker misses the mark with the crane ship Seishu Maru.

The crane ship was built for the express purpose of transporting guns and turrets from soon to be scrapped warships, then transporting the to where they will be used as coastal batteries(an army pervue). Thus, it was not built for strictly navy matters. Once this task was complete, it was relatively out of a job, and was lent to the IJN for use as a supply and salvage ship.

 

Takao:

Thank you for setting me straight on that. Being somewhat less familiar with the Japanese facet of the Second World War than the rest of the war, I am likely to miss details like this. Your expertise and knowledge is much appreciated. Best wishes for the holiday season.

Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.

 

The eastward maritime strategy was based on the premise that at some point the Americans would seek to advance across the Pacific, presumably in response to events in the Far East. Offensive operations like Pearl Harbor or the seizure of additional island bases were in pursuit of this overall strategy. The westward-looking Asian empire strategy was likely to be what triggered the need for the eastern operations.

Similarly, the carrier strategy was in support of conventional naval operations. Pearl Harbor was analogous to the torpedo-boat attack on the Russian fleet in Port Arthur in 1904 - a surprise attack by unconventional means to cripple the enemy at the outset of hostilities. It didn't mean that torpedo boats had replaced battleships as the arbiters of sea power. The decisive battles of that war were fleet actions at the Yellow Sea and Tsushima.

For WWII they expected the "decisive battle" to be a clash of fleets comprising battleships and all their supporting elements, after the enemy had been weakened by carrier and land-based air attacks, submarines, and light surface forces armed with torpedos. Yamamoto's strategy for Midway called for the Main Body to be on scene and finish off the Americans. Even after Midway, surface forces had important roles at Santa Cruz, even finishing off the crippled carrier Hornet after chasing away the rest of the American fleet.

 

No offense meant. but I tend not to follow threads that deal with USS Langley as "CV-1; " her designation, and indeed, reconfiguration, as AV-3 dated back to 1937; this is akin to referring to her as USS Jupiter.

None-the-less, the photo of my father on the, unofficial, Arlington site is of him as a 26 year old lieutenant in July 1942, freshly back from the Battle of Midway, not as a Rear Admiral, to which he was promoted in 1965.

FWIW