Evening star., 1942-04-07
japanese Took Own Time, as if Procticing,
In Sinking the Langley, Officer Relates
By GEORGE WELLER.

III OIHKInS TIC
BY GEORGE WELLER
Foreign CORRESPONDENT Of The Star and
Chicaso Daily News.
WITH THE SOUTHWEST PA
CIFIC COMMAND OF THE
UNITED STATES NAVY, April T.
The United States aircraft tender
Langley, Americas bid to help drive
hundreds of Japanese fighters and
bombers from hard-pressed Java,
went down in the Indian Ocean in
the last days of February almost
at the same time as the battle of
Java Sea February q, %, March
ID was being fought north of the
Indonesian Island barrier. 49,
Her gallant ending, paired for
ever with that of the Navy tanker
Pecos, will not be forgotten by any
of those who survived, some of whom
will soon be in the United States
One, who remained here, was 1t
Sidney Alfred Ernst of Grand
Rapids, Mich, a stocky, 34-year-old
paymaster who was graduated from
Annapolis in 1882 and has a wife
and 3-year-old daughter in Fresno
Calf.
1t. Ernst is an officer who began
his Navy career with two years en-
listment as an ordinary seaman. His
modest and unheroic account was
given to your correspondent while
he talked with him, sitting below a
gray ventilator on the warship to
which he is now assigned.
Had the Langley been an aircraft
carrier" which she was represented
as being in three previous Jap sink
ing claims, she would never have
fallen under the high-level bombing
attack, go miles south of Tjilatjap
(Southern Java port, which ended
her career as the Navy's Oldest air.
craft vessel. But, although there
was slowed on and beneath her
decks, the means of driving the Japs
from the Java skies, fighter planes
never took to the air, for the Lang
ley actually was only seaplane car
rier, that is, vessel adapted for
transport but not for launching
aircraft. Forty per cent of her
flight deck was removed five years
ago.
The fat old lady's speed was barely
equal to that Of the new Ugly
Duckling) freighters now being built
and she had been denoted because
she could not keep up with the CO.
ordinated movements OF the fleet
battleships.
The ironic circumstance that she
bore the means of her own defense,
below decks, but could neither
launch them aloft nor send them to
Java, where they were needed as
the life blood of the defense there
was simply inevitable. Sending of
modern American carriers to these
waters, while the Japs had cruisers,
destroyers, submarines and carriers
of their own, both north and south
of the island barrier. was unthink-
able because the Japs virtually mo-
nopolized the air.
Had Been One Jump Ahead.
Yet Java had been helped and the
measure of the sincerity Of the
American effort is contained in the
Langley's sacrifice.
The Langley had been one Jump
ahead of the Japs en- route south
ward from Cavite Captured United
States naval base in the Philippines)
in the United States Asiatic Fleets
dispersed retreat before Jap air
superiority. Several times she dodgec
the enemy during 10000 miles Q.
unharmed steaming through BAIL
Papan (Borneo), MacaSsar (Celebes)
Soerabaja (Java) and various Aus.
| tralian harborS-a succession of los
japanese chances. When she left or
her final voyage, and was, en- route
diverted to Java, the Langley had {
pair of destroyers in convoy, one o.
which has since been sunk.
The Langley's last day began tht
same as those of the Repulse anc
the Prince of Wales Cboth British)
warships of the Dutch fleet of Real
Admiral Karel w. F. M. Deoorman
and as was the case in almost every
other engagement in the Southwest
Pacific-with being discovered il
the early morning by carrier -basec
reconnaissance plane, while the
northward course was being made
toward Tjilatjap. But the Japs, who
were waiting for a large bag o.
Allied ships fleeing Tjilatjap ano
apparently wanted to save thel
bombs for them, sent call for land
based aircraft-which, with the Japs
also are under navy command
Coming, apparently, from Bali
they attacked at SIS pm. February
27, after reconnaissance began al
$3.50 a.m.-nine Jap bombers at
tackled the Langley from a height
of about $1,000 feet. Their forma.
ton was the usual open v. Tht
bombing was accurate, even though
the Langley set up a continua
chattering reply from the 50-calibel
guns on her bridge, and the re.
verberations from the four 3-incf
guns on her flight deck made ths
vessel shake. The Langley's st