USS F-4

USS F-4 (SS-23) was a United States Navy F-class submarine. Her keel was laid down by the Moran Brothers of Seattle, Washington. She was originally named Skate, making her the first ship of the United States Navy named for the skate. She was renamed F-4 on 17 November 1911. She was launched on 6 January 1912 sponsored by Mrs. M.F. Backus; and commissioned on 3 May 1913 with Lieutenant (junior grade) K.H. Donavin in command.

"USS Skate (SS-23)" redirects here. For other ships, see USS Skate.
USS F-4 sometime between 1913 and 1915.
History
United States
Name: USS F-4
Builder: Moran Brothers Company, Seattle, Washington
Laid down: 21 August 1909, as USS Skate
Launched: 6 January 1912
Commissioned: 3 May 1913
Renamed: USS F-4, 17 November 1911
Stricken: 31 August 1915
Fate:
  • Foundered, 25 March 1915
  • Raised, 29 August 1915; later a harbor marker and buried as trench fill off Pearl Harbor, 1940
General characteristics
Class and type: F-class submarine
Displacement: 330 long tons (340 t)
Length: 142 ft 7 in (43.46 m)
Beam: 15 ft 5 in (4.70 m)
Draft: 12 ft 2 in (3.71 m)
Speed: 14 kn (16 mph; 26 km/h)
Complement: 22 officers and enlisted
Armament: 4 × 18 inch (450 mm) torpedo tubes

Service history

Joining the First Submarine Group, Pacific Torpedo Flotilla, F-4 participated in the development operations of that group along the west coast, and from August 1914, in Hawaiian waters. During submarine maneuvers off Honolulu, Hawaii on 25 March 1915, she sank at a depth of 306 ft (93 m), 1.5 mi (2.4 km) from the harbor. Despite valorous efforts of naval authorities at Honolulu to locate the missing boat and save her crew, all 21 perished (C.O. LT(jg) Alfred Louis Ede and crew). F-4 was the first commissioned submarine of the U.S. Navy to be lost at sea.

U.S. Navy inspection personnel examining the large implosion hole in F-4's port side in drydock at Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, ca. late August or early September 1915. F-4 had been raised from 306 ft (93 m) of water and towed into port. This view was taken from off the port bow, showing F-4's port-side diving plane in the center. She is upside down, rolled to starboard approximately 120° from the vertical.

A diving and engineering precedent was established with the Navy's raising of the submarine on 29 August 1915. Divers descended to attach cables to tow the boat into shallow water, Naval Constructor Julius A. Furer, Rear Admiral C.B.T. Moore, and Lieutenant C. Smith were able to do this with the use of specially devised and constructed pontoons. Navy diver George D Stillson found the superstructure caved in and the hull filled with water.[1] One of the divers involved in the salvage operation was John Henry Turpin, who was, probably, the first African-American to qualify as a U.S. Navy Master Diver. Only four of the dead could be identified; the 17 others were buried in Arlington National Cemetery.[2]

The investigating board subsequently conjectured that corrosion of the lead lining of the battery tank had permitted seepage of sea water into the battery compartment and thereby caused the commanding officer to lose control on a submerged run. Others believe that the bypassing of an unreliable magnetic reducer closed a Kingston valve in the forward ballast tank resulting in a delay.[3] Based on other reported issues, there may also have been problems with the air lines supplying the ballast tank.[3]

F-4 was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 31 August 1915 and was taken from the dry dock in Honolulu Harbor in early September 1915 so the other three F-Class submarines could be dry docked as they had been rammed by the navy supply ship USS Supply (IX-147). The F-4 was moved, still hanging from the pontoons to Pearl Harbor and anchored in Magazine Loch until on or about November 25th 1915 when she was disconnected from the pontoons and settled into the mud at the bottom of the Loch. She remained there until the expansion of Pearl harbor in 1940 when the remains of F-4 were re-buried in a trench dug in the Loch bottom off the Submarine Base Mooring S14, Pearl Harbor.

Plans for the F-class submarines of the US Navy
gollark: What if you fake your own death so you can claim you're suffering trauma and don't have to study?
gollark: > someone should dieNo. That is a bad thing.
gollark: Euler was a real person, alright.
gollark: Anyway, there are other options you should consider: scholarships, possibly going to other countries although I doubt any will let you just go there and get free university or something, working in a job which does not require the expensive training so you can be financially independent, probably other stuff.
gollark: Oh no. How terrible.

References
  1. staff (16 April 1915). "WATER IN HULL OF F-4.; Diver Also Reports That Superstructure of Submarine Has Caved In" (PDF). NY Times. Retrieved 2011-08-24.
  2. Honolulu Star-Bulletin (2000). "The United States Submarine F-4 March 25, 1915". Arlington National Cemetery. Retrieved 2009-04-15.
  3. Searle Jr, Willard F; Curtis Jr, Thomas G (2006). "The loss and salvage of F-4, a historic milestone". Undersea Warfare. Navy. 7 (6). Retrieved 2016-04-07.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.

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