Arriving at San Francisco, we found Chance Vought waiting with a new Corsair single-float amphibian which he had personally chaperoned all the way from Long Island City in a baggage car. The Naval Aircraft Factory at Philadelphia later supplied two more of a somewhat different design. After testing them, I came in for a good deal of ribbing from _Langley_ pilots who, like Chance, insisted I had spoiled good airplanes by overloading them with junk. The craft may have been “klucks” but they lifted a heavy load from the staff conscience. The fleet sailed on schedule with the aircraft squadrons ready in all respects. Some of our wives, including mine, were to all sail later on a passenger steamer from Los Angeles. With our convertible coupe in the ship’s hold and my own recollections of an earlier visit to Honolulu in the old Armored Cruiser Squadrons in mind, we looked forward to a pleasant sojourn. During passage, the fleet passed the steamer at sea, where the wives got a close-up of the _Langley_ launching and receiving planes. We had been assigned a fixed station “6,000 yards astern of BAT DIVS,” an order that irked the admiral no end. To launch and receive aircraft, the _Langley_ had to leave her station and head into the wind, a fact that seemed to cause acute distress to those elements of the fleet accustomed to cruising in precise formation. On the slow journey westward, daily exercises, morning and afternoon, developed our flight-deck technique to the ultimate. As a plane floated in over the ramp, to drop into the gear and be brought up with a jerk, squads of deck handlers swarmed out of the nettings, cleared hooks from landing wires, caught wing tips, and hustled the craft forward of the barrier, just in time to clear the gear for the next plane, even then floating down the groove. It was Bull Reeves who pressed always for more speed. Always quick to condemn a miscue or commend smart action, he finally inspired the _Langley_ officers until they cut the take-off interval between planes down to ten seconds and the landing intervals to thirty. At the crack of dawn, one lovely Sunday morning, we headed into the wind to launch aircraft for the assault on Pearl Harbor. We had selected this day in the knowledge that the defenders, after the usual Saturday night festivities, would be sleeping late. First across the bow was Gerry Bogan of Fighting One; the rest of his flock zoomed after him at ten-second intervals. Fighting Six followed, led by “Injun Joe” Tomlinson. Finally scouts and amphibians roared into the air, leaving the deserted flight deck a bleak expanse of silence. After their attack on Pearl Harbor, the squadrons were to land ashore.