USS G-1 (SS-19½)

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Career
Ordered:	1909
Laid down:	2 February 1909
Launched:	9 February 1911
Commissioned:	28 October 1912
Fate:	sunk as a target
Stricken:
General Characteristics
Displacement:	400 tons
Length:	161 feet
Beam:	13 feet 1 inch
Draft:	12 feet 2 inches
Speed:	14 knots
Complement:	24 officers and men
Armament:	four 18-inch bow torpedo tubes in a trainable deck mount, two bow tubes

USS G-1 (SS-19½), the lead ship of her class, was named Seal when her keel was laid down on 2 February 1909 by the Newport News Shipbuilding Company in Newport News, Virginia, under a subcontract from the Lake Torpedo Boat Company, making her the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the seal, a sea mammal valued for its skin and oil. She was launched on 9 February 1911 sponsored by Miss Margaret V. Lake, daughter of Simon Lake, the submarine pioneer. She was renamed G-1 on 17 November 1911, and commissioned in the New York Navy Yard on 28 October 1912 with Lieutenant K. Whiting in command.

Seal was the first contract the Lake Torpedo Boat Company secured from the United States Government, but the contract's requirements were among the most severe ever required of a shipbuilder. The Company did not receive any payment on account during her construction and her required performances had never been approached by any other submarine in the world. G-1 met and exceeded those requirements and introduced several innovations. In addition to a pair of fixed torpedo tubes in the bow that required the vessel herself to be trained, G-1 carried four torpedo tubes in a mount on her deck that could be trained in the same manner as a deck gun on a surface vessel while the boat was submerged, thus allowing a "broadside" shot of one or more torpedoes.

G-1 joined the Atlantic Torpedo Flotilla in practice operations that were usually conducted from New York City and Newport, Rhode Island, into Long Island Sound and Narragansett Bay. She made a record dive of 256 feet in Long Island Sound and departed New York City on 25 March 1915 for a cruise with the Third Division of the Submarine Flotilla into Chesapeake Bay and down the seaboard to the Charleston Navy Yard, where she completed overhaul 5 May. She departed the following day to act as school ship at Newport where she carried out in harbor defense and patrol problems along with practice on the torpedo range. This duty continued until 3 October 1915 when she set course with the Flotilla for practice attacks in the Chesapeake Bay thence via Newport to New London, Connecticut.

G-1 arrived at New London on 18 October 1915 in company with three other G-class submarines, tended by monitor Ozark (ex-Arkanasas). This marked the beginning of her new career as a submarine designated for experimental tests and instructional purposes. She acted as a schoolship for the newly established Submarine Base and Submarine School at New London, playing an important role in preparing officers and men of the expanded submarine service occasioned by the new construction after our entry into World War I. Concurrently, G-1 tested detector devices for the Experiment Board off Provincetown, Massachusetts, and served in similar capacity for the Experimental Stations at Nahant, Massachusetts, and New London, Connecticut, in the development and use of sound detection and experiments with the "K tube," a communications device. With German U-boats reported off the coast in June 1918, the submarine spent two four-day periscope and listening patrols in the vicinity of Nantucket as a defense screen for shipping. She continued her instructions of student submariners of the Listener and Hydrophone School at New London until 13 January 1920, then was towed to the Philadelphia Navy Yard, where she decommissioned on 6 March 1920.

In 1920, G-1 was redesignated SS-20 even though that hull classification symbol and number had already been given to F-1, ex-Carp. F-1 had been decommissioned in 1917, so there was no overlap in time of service.

G-1 was designated a target for depth charge experiments under cognizance of the Bureau of Ordnance. She was sunk 21 June 1921, following eight experimental bomb attacks administered by Grebe (AM-43) in Narragansett Bay off Taylor's Point, Rhode Island. Her wreck was officially abandoned 26 August 1921.

See USS Seal for other ships of that name.

References

This article includes information collected from the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.