USS O-5 (SS-66)
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| Career |
|---|---|
| Ordered: | 3 March 1916 |
| Laid down: | 8 December 1916 |
| Launched: | 11 November 1917 |
| Commissioned: | 8 June 1918 |
| Decommissioned: | |
| Fate: | sunk by a fruit ship |
| Stricken: | 28 April 1924 |
| General Characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 520.6 tons surfaced, 629 tons submerged |
| Length: | 172 feet 4 inches (53 m) |
| Beam: | 18 feet (5.5 m) |
| Draft: | 14 feet 5 inches (4.4 m) |
| Propulsion: | |
| Speed: | 14 knots (26 km/h) surfaced, 10.5 knots (19 km/h) submerged |
| Range: | |
| Complement: | two officers, 27 men |
| Armament: | one three-inch/50-caliber (76 mm/50) gun; four 18-inch (457 mm) torpedo tubes, eight torpedoes |
| Motto: | |
USS O-5 (SS-66) was an O-class submarine. Her keel was laid down on 8 December 1916 by the Fore River Shipbuilding Company of Quincy, Massachusetts. She was launched on 11 November 1917, and commissioned on 8 June 1918 with Lieutenant G.A. Trever in command.
During the final months of World War I, O-5 operated along the Atlantic coast and patrolled from Cape Cod to Key West, Florida. She departed Newport, Rhode Island, on 3 November with a 20-sub contingent bound for European waters; however, hostilities had ceased before the vessels reached the Azores.
After the Armistice with Germany, O-5 operated out of the Submarine School at New London, Connecticut, until 1923. O-5 then sailed to Coco Solo, Panama Canal Zone, for a brief tour. On 28 October 1923, as O-5 entered Limon Bay, preparatory to transiting the Panama Canal, she was rammed by United Fruit steamer Abangarez and sank in less than a minute. Three men died; 16 others escaped. Two crewmembers were trapped in the forward torpedo room, which they sealed against the flooding of the submarine. Local engineers and divers were able to rig cranes and other equipment and lift O-5 far enough off the bottom that the bow broke the surface, exposing a hatch which led to the compartment were the two men were trapped, allowing them to be freed.
Struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 28 April 1924, she was sold as a hulk to R.K. Morris in Balboa, Panama Canal Zone, on 12 December 1924.
References
This article includes text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.