USS F-4

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USS Skate/F-4 (SS-23), also known as "Submarine No. 22", was an F-class submarine in the United States Navy (USN). She was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the skate, though she was renamed F-4 prior to launching. Commissioned in 1913, she operated in the Pacific Ocean, until she sank accidentally in 1915, the first commissioned submarine of the US Navy to be lost at sea.

Design

The F-class boats had an overall length of Template:Cvt, a beam of Template:Cvt, and a mean draft of Template:Cvt. They displaced Template:Cvt on the surface and Template:Cvt submerged with a diving depth of Template:Cvt. The F-class submarines had a crew of 1 officer and 21 enlisted men.Template:Sfn

For surface running, the boats were powered by two NELSECO diesel engines, each driving one propeller shaft. When submerged each propeller was driven by a electric motor. They could reach Template:Cvt on the surface and Template:Cvt underwater. On the surface, the boats had a range of Template:Cvt at Template:CvtTemplate:Sfn and Template:Cvt at Template:Cvt submerged.Template:Sfn

The F-class submarines were armed with four 18-inch (450 mm) torpedo tubes in the bow, no reloads were carried.Template:Sfn

Construction

SkateTemplate:'s keel was laid down on 21 August 1909, by The Moran Company, of Seattle, Washington. She was renamed F-4 on 17 November 1911, and launched on 6 January 1912, sponsored by Mrs. Manson Franklin Backus,Template:Sfn wife of the successful Seattle business man and banker Manson Franklin Backus.Template:Sfn F-4 was commissioned on 3 May 1913.Template:Sfn

Service history

Joining the First Submarine Group, Pacific Torpedo Flotilla, F-4 participated in the development operations of that group along the West Coast in 1913 and into 1914. In August 1914, all four F-class submarines were transferred to duty in the Territory of Hawaii, the first submarines to operate from Hawaii, the boats towed to their new operating area by armored cruisers.Template:Sfn The facilities at Pearl Harbor were still under construction at the time, so the submarines were based at rented pier space in Honolulu.Template:Sfn

During training maneuvers off the entrance to Honolulu Harbor on 25 March 1915, F-4 suffered a casualty and sank to the bottom Template:Cvt from the harbor, coming to rest at a depth of .Template:Sfn Upon noticing that F-4 had failed to return on time, Navy authorities at Honolulu began efforts to locate her. One diver from her sister ship , Chief Gunner's Mate Jack Agraz, made numerous deep dives during the search phase without a diving suit or weights, with just a diving helmet and breast plate perched on his shoulders.Template:Sfn Eventually searchers located F-4 on the bottom and determined that the pressure hull had imploded, flooding the submarine and killing her crew. All 21 aboard perished.Template:Sfn

Electrician's Mate 3rd Class James Morton Hoggett, remained ashore when F-4 got underway to stand duty as a pier watchman, responsible for receiving any important news that occurred ashore while F-4 was at sea and relaying it to F-4Template:'s commanding officer upon the submarine's return, a common practice before ships had radios, as well as for looking after the submarine's supplies and gear left behind on the pier. He was F-4Template:'s only survivor.Template:Sfn

Salvage and recovery

File:USS F-4 1913.jpg

US Navy inspectors examining the implosion hole in F-4Template:'s port side in drydock at Honolulu, late August or early September 1915. Note that the submarine is upside down in the drydock, in the position she was found on the ocean bottom.

The Navy determined that the submarine needed to be raised so that the crew could be recovered and the boat examined to determine a cause of her loss. An ambitious and technologically challenging diving and engineering effort began which set a new precedent in deep-water salvage.Template:Sfn Divers assisted in slinging lifting chains under the wreck's hull, with the chains attached to six specially built lifting pontoons. Naval Constructor Lieutenant Commander Julius A. Furer, Rear Admiral C. B. T. Moore, and Lieutenant Charles Smith, led the demanding effort.Template:Sfn Navy diving expert Chief Gunner George D. Stillson, surveyed the wreck and found the superstructure caved in and the hull filled with water.Template:SfnTemplate:EfnTemplate:Sfn One of the divers involved in the salvage operation was John Henry Turpin, who was probably the first African American to qualify as a US Navy Master Diver.Template:Sfn After five and a half months of effort the submarine was raised and returned to dry dock in Honolulu on 29 August 1915. Only four of the dead could be identified; the 17 others were buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.Template:Sfn

The investigating board subsequently conjectured that gradual leakage of battery acid onto the steel pressure hull below the forward battery well had weakened the hull and the rivets that held the hull together. This permitted sea water to enter the battery compartment under submerged pressure. Subsequent post-salvage examination showed that the bilge suction valves in the battery tank had been accidentally fouled by tar pitch used to seal the battery well, rendering the crew unable to pump out the flooding seawater. This flooding in the forward battery well caused the crew to lose buoyancy control, and the submarine quickly sank below her crush depth, with the hull imploding in the torpedo room.Template:Sfn Others believe that the bypassing of an unreliable magnetic reducer closed a Kingston valve in the forward ballast tank, resulting in a delay. Based on other reported issues, there may also have been problems with the air lines supplying the ballast tank.Template:Sfn

Fate

After the completion of the investigation useful equipment was stripped from the wreck and F-4 was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 31 August 1915. She was removed from the dry dock in Honolulu Harbor, in early September 1915, so the other three F-class submarines, which had been rammed accidentally and lightly damaged by the Navy supply ship , could be drydocked for repairs. F-4 was moved, still hanging from the pontoons, to Pearl Harbor, where she bottomed in the shallow waters of the then-unused Magazine Loch on or about 25 November 1915. She was then disconnected from the pontoons and allowed to settle into the mud at the bottom of the loch. She remained there until 1940, when she was found to be in the way of expansion of the Naval Submarine Base Pearl Harbor pier facilities. The wreck of F-4 was moved a few yards to the west and re-buried in a trench dug in the loch bottom near Submarine Base mooring S14, where it remains to this day.Template:Sfn

Wreck location:

File:Francis Hughson Naval Portrait.jpg

Francis Hughson, Crew Member

Bibliography

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