World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseNamed after the first United States Navy carrier which was sunk near the start of the Pacific War, the second USS Langley, CVL-27, was commissioned into service in Aug 1943. She had originally been ordered as a light cruiser, but she was reordered as a light carrier in Mar 1942 and was renamed Langley in Nov 1942. She joined the war starting in early 1944 and saw action in the Marshall Islands, New Guinea, Mariana Islands, Palau Islands, Taiwan, Ryukyu Islands, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and other locations as the Japanese front lines slowly fell back toward the Japanese home islands. She returned to the United States for a scheduled overhaul in Jun 1945, and while en route back to the front, Japan announced its intention to surrender. After transporting Pacific War veterans back to the United States in Oct 1945, she conducted a similar mission with European War veterans between Nov 1945 and Jan 1946. She was inactivated at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States in 1946 and was decommissioned, also at Philadelphia, in the following year.

ww2dbaseIn 1951, Langley was transferred to the French Navy under the Mutual Defense Assistance Program where she would be renamed La Fayette (R96). Based out of Toulon, France, she made several journeys to the Far East with American-built WW2-era propeller carrier aircraft, seeing action in Indochina. She also saw service in the Mediterranean Sea and in the Atlantic Ocean, where she participated in the 1956 Suez Crisis and assisted survivors of the earthquake of 1960 at Agadir, Morocco, among other missions. La Fayette was returned to the United States in Mar 1963 after logging 350,000 nautical miles, and was sold for scrap at Baltimore, Maryland, United States in 1964.

Light Carrier Langley (Independence-class) (CVL-27) Interactive Map

Photographs

Langley (Independence-class) Operational Timeline