<Li> 1 × elevator </Li> <Li> 1 × catapult </Li> <P> USS Langley (CV - 1 / AV - 3) was the United States Navy's first aircraft carrier, converted in 1920 from the collier USS Jupiter (AC - 3), and also the US Navy's first turbo - electric - powered ship . Conversion of another collier was planned but canceled when the Washington Naval Treaty required the cancellation of the partially built Lexington - class battlecruisers Lexington and Saratoga, freeing up their hulls for conversion to the aircraft carriers Lexington and Saratoga . Langley was named after Samuel Pierpont Langley, an American aviation pioneer . Following another conversion, to a seaplane tender, Langley fought in World War II . On 27 February 1942, she was attacked by nine twin - engine Japanese bombers of the Japanese 21st and 23rd Naval Air Flotillas and so badly damaged that she had to be scuttled by her escorts . </P> <P> President William H. Taft attended the ceremony when Jupiter's keel was laid down on 18 October 1911 at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, California . She was launched on 14 August 1912 sponsored by Mrs. Thomas F. Ruhm; and commissioned on 7 April 1913 under Commander Joseph M. Reeves . Her sister ships were Cyclops, which disappeared without a trace in World War I, Proteus, and Nereus, which disappeared on the same route as Cyclops in World War II . </P>

When was the first us aircraft carrier built