Glover F-3 photos

Notes

The U.S. Navy began operating submarines out of San Pedro, California as early as 1910, but officially established Submarine Base San Pedro on June 10, 1917. The Navy rented space in the warehouses along piers 57-60 in an area near what is now Cabrillo Marina Park. San Pedro eventually became a major fleet anchorage, although a full Navy Yard and base was never built. However, it was a significant submarine base until about 1940, when most of the remaining submarine operations were shifted to San Diego and Pearl Harbor. The movie photos shown below were all taken at Submarine Base San Pedro or in the nearby San Pedro Channel.

SPECIAL NOTE. All photos on this page are the personal property of the Glover/Loushin family and MAY NOT BE USED OR REPOSTED without their specific written permission.

F-3 movie role as U-65

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This series of 13 photographs in the Glover Collection show F-3 laying to off Submarine Base San Pedro, diving, or surfacing for the movie cameras. All photos are clickable for larger versions.

This photo shows F-3 at rest with Deadman's Island in the background. Deadman's Island and Reservation Point were dredged away in 1928 as part of a harbor development effort. The island was in the main channel of the Port of Los Angeles and was dynamited and dredged away, with the resulting rubble used to add 62 acres to the southern tip of Terminal Island.

Photo gallery of George Glover

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Eight photos of QM 2c George "Ray" Glover, USN while assigned to the USS F-3 (SS-25) in 1918 and 1919. In some of the photos the F-2 can be seen in the background.

Various Crew Photos

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These are various informal crew photos of George Glover's shipmates on F-3. Although these men were consummate professionals, don't expect to see spit and polish or rigid discipline. Submarine life in this period was hot, smelly, and dangerous. The pretensions of the surface Navy simply did not work in this environment. The bonds amongst the crew were strong, and familiarity bred only respect, not contempt or carelessness.

F-3 interior photos

The F-3 torpedo room. A skid for loading and handling a torpedo can be seen to the left in the photo in front of what is the # 4 torpedo tube. Torpedo tubes are numbered top to bottom. Odd numbers on the starboard side, tubes 1 and 3, and even numbers on the port side, tubes 2 and 4.

The F-class carried four torpedoes and no re-loads. As it is the total weight of the 4 torpedoes is 7200 pounds or 3.6 tons.

A crewmember working on a torpedo sticking out of torpedo tube number 4. Behind him can be seen a torpedo skid in front of the number 3 torpedo tube door. Chain fall hoists for torpedo handling can be seen hanging from the overhead, port and starboard above the top torpedo tube doors. Lockers held equipment for working on the torpedoes.

Anytime a tube was flooded and not fired the torpedo was pulled from the tube and given maintenance. Having a rotating bow cap with two openings anytime the cap was rotated at least two tubes would flood. The Gunner's Mates (Torpedomen) were a busy bunch.

The torpedo is most likely a Bliss-Leavitt Mark 6 torpedo. In actuality the dimensions were 17.7 inches (17 and 11/16 inches) in diameter and 17 feet long. The torpedo tube itself was 18 inches in diameter and 17 feet 4 inches long. The warhead could carry 200 lbs. wet gun-cotton detonated by a contact exploder. They had a range of around 2000 yards and were steam powered. They weighed in at 1800 pounds each.

Some crew in the torpedo room goofing off for the camera. The man in the center, a Seaman 1st Class, had been identified on the photo back as a stowaway. Whether this is true or not isn't known. He may be just a visitor or had really gotten aboard and had gone to sea with them. He is wearing a set of wool undress blues (no stripes around the collar cuffs) and the rest of the men with him are in dungarees. Rarely would that uniform be worn aboard a submarine.

A crew man using the radio set. The man appears to be the Officers Steward or Mess Attendant. Through the door can be seen the lockers in the torpedo room. That would make the location of the radio station on the port side of the boat at the forward end of the battery space. A hand wound record player can be seen on the left side of the photo.

EM 2c (Radio) G. Reed working at the radio set. Working these radios required a well developed set of skills and a great set of ears. Radio technology of the day was primitive, with only Morse code and no voice capability. The sets were complex and somewhat unreliable, and were prone to short circuits and flashovers when they got damp in the dank atmosphere of the boats.

The curving pipe is one of the ventilation pipes for the Battery Well. These are usually at the forward and after ends of the battery wells and have a fan built into them to help remove dangerous gases that can build up there from accumulation. Note there is a screened top to the pipe.

The control room of the F-3 looking forward and port. The forward and after battery compartments and the control room were all one compartment, without a bulkhead to separate them. In the foreground is the ladder leading up to the conning tower. Beyond that is the helm wheel. Electrical panels for distribution of power from the battery are on the left.

F-3 control room. The view is to starboard and forward. The large white object is electric motor for the pump station. This could be the motor that ran several pumps or just one. Most likely this is for trimming the submarine by pumping water to forward and aft trim tanks, auxiliary tanks and in and out of other ballast tanks of the submarine.

Electrical panels are seen to the right. Far left in the photo can be seen the Kingston valve operating levers at a slight angle to the right of the large white pipe. The galley is to the left of these levers. The shape of the heating oven and locker below are just seen through the rungs of the bridge access ladder.

A view of the electrical panels just aft of the pump shown in the above photo.

Bow and stern planes hand wheels. Bow planes to the right, stern planes to the left. This is on the port side of the control room forward of the electrical panels. Two depth gauges are seen above the wheels.

Also seen behind the wheels are chains or ribbed belts that take the movement of the wheels to gear boxes above then transfer that leverage to the control rods in the overhead to the bow and stern planes. The wheels are this large to increase the leverage to turn all that resistance. No power steering here.

Below the planes wheels, the lengths of pipe are part of the portable frame for the canvas bridge structure that had to be disassembled and taken below before diving.

Just forward of the dive station a fold out desk can be seen. A crewman stands at the left side of the photo. On the bottom of the vertical white pipe can be seen a flapper valve indicator. These are probably for battery well ventilation. The bridge frame pipes are again seen just behind the flapper valve.

Starboard side, forward. The galley facilities aboard the F-3 are pretty basic. There appears to be several hot plates on the counter with an old-fashioned toaster and a coffee urn. To the right of the white pipe is an heating/baking oven and storage lockers below for food and pots and pan storage. At the far right are the Kingston valve operating levers.

These were coastal defense submarines and not really meant to have sustained times at sea. A couple of days were what was expected of these vessels before a return to a port or tender vessel with full messing and berthing facilities.

Various photos

A nice photo of F-3 and her crew, circa 1920.

A view looking aft at sea, across the F-3 superstructure skeg that leads down to the rudder.

A nest of submarines tied up to the pier at San Pedro, approximately 1919-1920. Two of them are the two remaining F-class boats. This is a serious amount of smoke. It is black in color and this indicates a petroleum fueled fire. If this was smoke from starting the engines it would be white. What exactly is going on here is not known.

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