T-3 running trials, late fall of 1920, location unknown. Like her sister AA-2 (T-2) she does not yet have the bridge fairwater installed and she was also completed without the trainable torpedo tubes in the superstructure. This was one of the few times that she made a full power run, as evidenced by the impressive bow wave. Her engines ended up being nearly total failures, and runs like this were rare. The sea is nearly a glass calm, and this helped the situation. A heavier sea would have inundated the bridge as these boats were known to trim down by the head at high speeds on the surface.
Photo provided by MMCM(SS) Rick Larson, USN (Ret.)
T-3 at the Bethlehem Quincy Fore River yard, date unknown but is likely shortly before or after her commissioning on December 7, 1920. By the date of this photo, T-3 has received a temporary pipe frame and canvas bridge structure. This would be replaced later with a permanent metal chariot bridge. On the forward deck above the folded bow planes is a passive listening sonar array called the Y-tube. It consisted of three hydrophones on a triangular frame. The hydrophones were covered by tapered flexible rubber covers called "rats", giving them a distinctive shape. The Y-tube array is protected by a pipe frame guard erected over and around it.
On the right in the photo is the bow of a 20 series S-boat, along with the tip of the bow of one of the other T-class fleet boats, likely T-2. Note that the bow planes on the S-boat have a completely different folding and retraction system, retracting into the superstructure as opposed to folding up alongside it like on the T-3.
U.S. Navy photo
After slightly less than two years in commission, T-3 was decommissioned and placed in reserve in Philadelphia. In October, 1925 she was modified in a scheme to test a new MAN engine design, a 10 cylinder, four cycle, 2,350 horsepower giant. Her four failed NELSECO engines were removed and two of these new engines were installed in their place. She was recommissioned and placed back in limited service to tests these engines. After a series of tests over the next 18 months showed that these engines were failures as well, she was again decommissioned and relegated back to the reserve fleet in Philadelphia.
