The stern of USS S-5 projected above the sea. Inside, the crew was still trapped behind the steel hull.
On September 1, 1920, the submarine had flooded during a test dive off the Delaware Capes and settled in about 194 feet of water. Its crew found a way to raise one end of the vessel, but that did not provide an exit.
The USS S-5 rescue would depend on an opening that had to be made after the emergency began.
USS S-5: The submarine stood on its bow
The Navy’s ship history describes water entering through the main air-induction system. Attempts to isolate the flooding succeeded in some spaces but not in the torpedo room. Additional water inside the boat left it unable to recover normally.
The crew reasoned that increasing buoyancy in the after section could lift the stern while the bow remained down. The plan involved a dangerous redistribution of water, including the risk of seawater reaching batteries and producing chlorine gas.
The stern rose toward the surface. Loose equipment and people were displaced as the submarine changed orientation. One man had to be pulled from the battery compartment before it was sealed.
By tapping on the hull, the crew determined that approximately seventeen feet of the stern extended above the water.
Air outside, steel between
The men took turns trying to cut through the hull with inadequate tools. After thirty-six hours, the hole was only about three inches across.
They had reached the surface in one sense, yet remained confined in another. The exposed stern could be noticed by passing vessels, but people still needed an opening large enough to get out.
Merchant ships provided assistance. An escape access was eventually cut in the exposed steel, and all aboard were rescued after roughly fifty-one hours.
The submarine itself was not saved. A subsequent towing attempt ended with the stern going under and water entering through the opening used for the rescue.
That final reversal gives the story a particularly stark shape. The breach that allowed the crew to leave became part of the reason the damaged boat could not be recovered in that attempt.
For the men inside, however, the decisive change had already occurred. A few inches cut after more than a day of work had become a passage through which an entire crew could finally return to the open air.
Sources and reporting
Researched reporting: an original narrative based on the published records linked below.
