The USS F-4 was not the pride of the fleet. She was not a grand battleship, nor a sleek destroyer cutting through the waves with an imposing presence. She was, however, an experiment, a step forward in the infancy of submarine warfare, when the U.S. Navy was still feeling out the dangers of the deep.
Laid down in 1909 in Seattle by the Moran Company as the submarine Skate, she was later renamed USS F-4 as part of the fledgling F-class of submarines, a group of underwater vessels meant to expand the Navy’s undersea capabilities. Commissioned on May 3, 1913, she joined the First Submarine Group, Pacific Torpedo Flotilla. Her mission was simple: to test and develop underwater combat strategies, improve the Navy’s understanding of submarine operations, and train the next generation of submariners in this new and dangerous branch of warfare.
The man at the top of the mast is Electricians Mate 2nd Class George L. Deeth. He may have just been goofing off but more likely he had been checking the light at the mast head.
Photo from the private collection of Ric Hedman. (Piboats.com)
Submarines of the era were crude, uncomfortable, and unpredictable. The F-4, like her sisters, had limited range and had to be towed across the ocean to her duty station in Hawaii. She was small, only 142 feet long, and operated with a crew of 22 men. Her torpedo tubes were her only weapons, and her primary means of propulsion was a gasoline engine for surface running, switching to electric motors powered by batteries while submerged. Those batteries, as fate would have it, would be her undoing.
On the morning of March 25, 1915, the USS F-4 departed Honolulu Harbor alongside her sister submarines, F-1 and F-3, for a routine training dive. The crew likely expected another uneventful drill. But as the F-4 slipped beneath the waves, something went terribly wrong. Unlike her sister submarines, she did not resurface. The first sign of trouble was an oil slick spotted near Diamond Head, accompanied by a cluster of air bubbles rising from the depths.
Panic set in aboard the submarine tender Alert when the F-4 failed to return. The crew of the other submarines, now safely back in the harbor, knew that something had gone horribly wrong. A desperate search began, but communication with the lost vessel was impossible. Listening devices picked up no signs of life. The tugs Intrepid and Navajo dragged cables across the seabed, hoping to catch the F-4 and pull her toward shallower waters. After hours of dragging, they finally struck something solid.
The depth at which the F-4 had settled—over 300 feet—was deeper than any salvage operation had ever attempted. Divers were sent down, facing unprecedented challenges. The dangers of deep-sea diving in 1915 were immense, and the risks were compounded by the unknown condition of the sunken vessel. Chief Gunner’s Mate Frank Crilley, a deep-sea diver, earned the Medal of Honor for his bravery during the operation. He descended to the wreck and, at great personal risk, freed a trapped fellow diver, Chief Gunner’s Mate William Loughman, who had become entangled in the cables.
Meanwhile, the wreck of the F-4 remained a mystery. When divers finally reached her, they found that her hull had partially imploded. The investigating board later concluded that the lead lining of her battery tank had corroded, allowing seawater to mix with the battery acid, producing chlorine gas. The gas would have incapacitated the crew and ultimately led to the loss of control, dooming the submarine to sink beyond recovery. Additional theories suggested that a closed Kingston valve in the forward ballast tank or faulty air lines supplying the ballast system may have contributed to the loss.
The salvage effort was grueling. The Navy tried everything, but the sunken submarine would not budge. Finally, engineers devised a method using massive pontoons that were filled with water, attached to the wreck, and then pumped out to provide lift. After months of trial and error, the wreck of the F-4 finally broke the surface on August 29, 1915. The submarine was towed to Pearl Harbor, where it was placed in drydock. The sight of the ruined vessel must have been grim. Only four bodies could be identified; the remaining seventeen men were buried in a common grave at Arlington National Cemetery.
The USS F-4’s service was brief, and her fate tragic. Yet, her loss was not in vain. Her sacrifice forced the Navy to reevaluate submarine safety, leading to improvements in design, construction, and emergency procedures. In the years to come, as submarines evolved into the silent killers of the sea, the lessons learned from the F-4 disaster remained a cornerstone of submarine development.
The final fate of the wreck was as unceremonious as her sinking. After years as a harbor marker, the remains of the F-4 were buried in a trench at the bottom of Pearl Harbor in 1940 to make way for harbor expansion. Her legacy, however, endures. A plaque at Pearl Harbor commemorates the sacrifice of her crew, and the headstone marking the common grave of her sailors was ultimately preserved at the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum.
Today, the ghosts of the F-4’s crew remain among the ranks of those who went down to the sea in ships and never returned. The men who served aboard her were pioneers in a branch of the Navy that would become indispensable in the wars to come. Their sacrifice was not forgotten by the submarine community, and their names were restored to history through the efforts of dedicated veterans.
The sea has always demanded a price from those who dare to challenge its depths, and on that fateful day in 1915, it claimed the USS F-4. But in doing so, it helped shape the future of undersea warfare. The men of the F-4, though lost, remain honored. Their story, once nearly forgotten, is now etched into the annals of naval history.
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