USS H-2
USS Nautilus/H-2 , also known as "Submarine No. 29", was an [United States United States H-class submarine|H-class submarine|H-class] submarine of the United States Navy. She was the third ship and first submarine of the USN to bear the name nautilus, a tropical mollusk having a many-chambered, spiral shell with a pearly interior, though she was renamed H-2 prior to launching.
Design
The H-class submarines had an overall length of, a beam of, and a mean draft of. They displaced on the surface and submerged. They had a diving depth of. The boats had a crew of 2 officers and 23 enlisted men.For surface running, they were powered by two New London Ship & Engine Company diesel engines, each driving one propeller shaft. When submerged each propeller was driven by two Electro-Dynamic Company electric motors. They could reach on the surface and underwater. On the surface, the boats had a range of at and at submerged.
The boats were armed with four 18-inch (450 mm) torpedo tubes in the bow. They carried four reloads, for a total of eight torpedoes.
Construction
Nautiluss keel was laid down on 23 March 1911, by the Union Iron Works, of San Francisco, California. She was renamed H-2, on 17 November 1911, and launched on 4 June 1913, sponsored by Mrs. William Ranney Sands. H-2 was commissioned on 1 December 1913.Service history
Attached to the Pacific Fleet, H-2 operated along the West Coast, usually in company with, on various exercises and patrols out of San Pedro, California, until October 1917, when she sailed for the East Coast. Transferred to the Atlantic Fleet, as of 9 November 1917, she cruised in the Caribbean Sea, for most of that winter, also conducting special submarine detection tests with aircraft and patrol vessels from Key West, Florida. After having new engines installed at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the spring of 1918, she resumed patrols in the Caribbean, until the end of the war, when she returned to the sub base at New London, Connecticut. From there, she operated in Long Island Sound, often with student officers from the submarine school on board.Heading west again, H-2 sailed with H-1, on 6 January 1920, touching at several Caribbean ports before transiting the Panama Canal, on 20 February. When H-1 went aground off Santa Margarita Island, on 12 March, H-2 stood by and sent rescue and search parties for survivors, helping to save all but four of her sister ship's crew. She then continued to San Pedro, arriving on 20 March.
Drills and exercises with the Pacific Fleet, and Submarine Division 7, out of San Pedro, were interrupted by an extensive Mare Island Naval Shipyard overhaul in the winter of 1921, after which H-2 returned to the same schedule.