USS F-4

"USS Skate (SS-23)" redirects here. For other ships, see USS Skate.

USS F-4, 1913-1915.
History
United States
Name	USS F-4
Builder	The Moran 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

U.S. Navy inspectors examining the implosion hole in F-4'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.

Plans for the F-class submarine

Francis Hughson, Crew Member

USS F-4 (SS-23) was a United States Navy F-class submarine. Her keel was laid down by the Moran Company of Seattle, Washington, sponsored by Mrs. Manson Franklin Backus, wife of a successful Seattle business man and banker. The submarine 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, launched on 6 January 1912 and commissioned on 3 May 1913.

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 boats were transferred to duty in Hawaii, the first submarines to operate from that territory. The facilities in Pearl Harbor were still under construction so the submarines were based at rented pier space in Honolulu.

During training maneuvers off the entrance to Honolulu Harbor on 25 March 1915, F-4 suffered a casualty and sank to the bottom at a depth of 306 ft (93 m), 1.5 mi (2.4 km) from the harbor. Upon noticing that F-4 had failed to return on time, valiant efforts by the Honolulu naval authorities were made to locate the missing boat. One diver from sister submarine F-1, Chief Gunner's Mate John 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. Eventually the boat was located on the bottom and it was determined that the hull had imploded, flooding the boat and killing her crew. All 21 aboard perished. One member of the F-4's crew, Electrician's Mate 3rd Class James Morton Hoggett, was left ashore when the boat got underway, standing duty as a pier watchman. His responsibility was to receive any important news that occurred ashore while the ship was at sea and relay it to the captain on the ship's return. This was commonly done before ships had radios. He was also to look after the boat's supplies and gear that had been left on the pier. He was the only survivor. F-4 was the first commissioned submarine of the U.S. Navy to be lost at sea.

Salvage and recovery

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. An ambitious and technologically challenging diving and engineering effort laid ahead, setting a new precedent in deep water salvage. Divers assisted in slinging lifting chains under the 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. Navy diving expert Chief Gunner George D. Stillson surveyed the wreck and found the superstructure caved in and the hull filled with water. (Note: the cited newspaper article was technically incorrect, it was actually the pressure hull that was caved in.) 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. After five and a half months of effort the submarine was raised and returned back to dry dock in Honolulu on August 29, 1915. Only four of the dead could be identified; the 17 others were buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

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 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 boat sank quickly below its crush depth, with the hull imploding in the torpedo room. 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.

After the completion of the investigation any remaining 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 could be dry docked for repairs, as they had been accidentally rammed and lightly damaged by the navy supply ship USS Supply (1872). The F-4 was moved, still hanging from the pontoons, up the coast to Pearl Harbor until 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 Submarine Base pier facilities. The hulk 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, Pearl Harbor. Her hulk remains there to this day.

References

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

Bibliography

• Gates, John Humboldt Before the Dolphins Guild. Moonstone Publishing, 2022. ISBN 978-1-878136-03-9

External links

• PigBoats.COM F-class page
• PigBoats.COM F-4 page
• PigBoats.COM F-4 accident page
• NavSource Online Submarine Photo Archive: Skate / F-4 (SS-23) Archived here.
• On Eternal Patrol: USS F-4 Archived here.
• The crew's final resting place Archived here.