S-11

S-11 on the building ways at the Portsmouth Navy Yard, early 1921. This photo was likely taken only a few days before her launching on February 7, 1921. The building ways for the S-class boats at Portsmouth were under massive sheds that permitted work throughout the harsh Maine winter. This was a factor in the relatively speedy construction times for these boats. The cribbing under her stern would be removed before launching. The single aft torpedo tube is very apparent in this view.

Photo in the private collection of Ric Hedman.

S-11 in dry dock at Boston Navy Yard in Charlestown, MA., circa 1924, prior to her transit of the Panama Canal in October of that year enroute to California and then Hawaii. Some sort of work is going on at the bow in and around the torpedo tubes. The view is somewhat blocked by a barge that is in the dock with S-11. A block and tackle has been rigged and hangs over that location. Some crew has been doing laundry. A crewman stands on the deck near the gun.

Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection.

Close up of the man on deck and the types of laundry hanging to dry from the radio aerials. In the left center of the photo the T-shaped SC sonar array can be seen, protected by a metal tube cage. The head was rotatable by an operator in the torpedo room, and it was capable of giving a bearing to a target, although the accuracy was not good enough to develop a torpedo fire control solution. It was mostly for a detection and general tracking capability.

Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection.

Closeup of the work area showing the port torpedo tube shutter doors open and the port bow plane with its guard above it. Just aft of the bow plane and just above the plank scaffold is a circular disk that is the Fessenden Oscillator sound head, used for underwater communication and sound detection. Running aft from there is the knife-like bilge keel, whose purpose was to reduce longitudinal rolling while on the surface.

Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection.

A stern view of the S-11 in dry dock at the Boston Navy Yard, approximately 1924. A barge can be seen in front and to the left side in the photo. The Government design S-class boats has a single stern plane stretching across the stern aft of the props. Compare this photo to the one of the S-8 in drydock, and you can see how the stern was modified to accommodate the stern torpedo tube of the S-10 group.

Just visible on the aft deck is a hump that covers new mufflers for her diesel engines. These mufflers are larger than the original ones, and are probably water cooled, necessitating the larger covering and the distinctive hump.

Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection.

A photo of the S-11 in drydock from the stern, a different angle from the one above. Putting a submarine in drydock was a complicated and delicate exercise that required a great deal of precision. A series of heavy wooden blocks were placed in the drydock in specific locations based on the design of the boat being drydocked. They had to be placed in precise locations so that the boat's keel would rest on them properly. Once the keel blocks were in place, the dock was flooded and the boat carefully towed in and precisely placed over the keel blocks. The caisson gate was then put in place at the end of the dock and the water was pumped down until the boat's keel just barely touched the blocks. A diver then went into the water to ensure that none of the blocks shifted. The diver would then install the vertical wooden shoring braces seen here under the port and starboard side bilge keels. Yard workers would then install the long wooden shores between the sides of the boat and the dock. Once satisfied that the boat was firmly in place, the remainder of the water would be pumped out so that the work could begin.

Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection.

A closeup of the stern of the S-11 while in drydock at the Boston Navy Yard, circa 1924. The muzzle door of the torpedo tube was actually inside of the superstructure, approximately at the spot where the rope is draped over the stern near the end. The muzzle door opened downward into ther void space underneath it, and the weapon exited the boat through the circular opening seen here. The space aft of the muzzle door was free flooding. At this point in USN submarine development, stern torpedo tubes were nearly unheard of, with only the Laurenti-type USS G-4 (Submarine No. 26) of 1914 and the Lake-type USS G-2 (Submarine No. 27) of 1915 having stern tubes. This was mostly due to the fact that the Electric Boat single hull subs with their axial mounted rudders were not capable of having a stern tube mounted, and this type of boat made up the bulk of the Submarine Force until the introduction of the Government S-class design.

Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection.

S-11 waiting to be towed into one of the Panama Canal locks, October 1924. The boat was enroute from the east coast to her new homeport in Hawaii, via a stop in California. Transiting the canal can be a long and tedious process, and the oppressive tropical heat and humidity made conditions below quite difficult for the crew. Here S-11 has canvas awnings rigged topside where the men can gain some measure of relief.

The boat's standard Navy stockless anchor is visible in its housing on the starboard side of the bow. In addition, the boat also had a mushroom anchor mounted on her keel forward, housed between the torpedo tubes. The mushroom anchor was used as a means of mooring the boat while submerged in shallow water.

Aft of the two men sitting at the bow, another crewman is sitting near the T-shaped rotating head for the SC series sonar. The SC was one of the first USN submarine-based sonars that was capable of acquiring a bearing to the target. An operator with headphones below deck turned the head via a handwheel, and could thus home in on a bearing to the target, albeit not with pin-point accuracy.

Photo in the private collection of David Johnston.

Return to the S-class page | Return to the Submarine Classes page

Page created by:
Ric Hedman & David Johnston
1999 - 2023 - PigBoats.COM^©
Mountlake Terrace, WA, Norfolk, VA
webmaster at pigboats dot com