USS Shark (SS-8)
Template:Short description Template:Other ships
Template:Infobox ship imageTemplate:Infobox ship careerTemplate:Infobox ship careerTemplate:Infobox ship characteristicsUSS Shark/A-7 (SS-8), also known as "Submarine Torpedo Boat No. 8", was one of seven Template:Sclasss built for the United States Navy (USN) in the first decade of the 20th century. She was the third boat of the USN to be named for the shark. Used primarily for training, she was transported to the Philippines, in 1908. During WWI she served as harbor defense in Manila Bay.
Design
The Template:Sclasss were enlarged and improved versions of the preceding Holland, the first submarine in the USN. They had a length of Template:Cvt overall, a beam of Template:Cvt and a mean draft of Template:Cvt. They displaced Template:Cvt on the surface and Template:Cvt submerged. The Plunger-class boats had a crew of one officer and six enlisted men. They had a diving depth of Template:Convert.Template:Sfn
For surface running, they were powered by one Template:Convert gasoline engine that drove the single propeller. When submerged the propeller was driven by a Template:Convert electric motor.Template:Sfn The boats could reach Template:Cvt on the surface and Template:Cvt underwater.Template:Sfn
The Plunger-class boats were armed with one Template:Convert torpedo tube in the bow. They carried four reloads, for a total of five torpedoes.Template:Sfn
Construction
Shark was laid down on 11 January 1901, in Elizabethport, New Jersey, at the Crescent Shipyard, by Lewis Nixon, a subcontractor for the Holland Torpedo Boat Company, New York City; launched on 19 October 1901; sponsored Mrs. Walter Stevens Turpin, wife of an officer on duty at Crescent Shipyard; and commissioned at the Holland Torpedo Boatyard at New Suffolk, New York on 19 September 1903.Template:Sfn
Service history
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Over the next three and a half years, Shark operated locally at the Naval Torpedo Station, in Newport, Rhode Island, conducting firing tests with torpedoes and participating in early research and development efforts in the field of undersea warfare. Assigned to the First Submarine Flotilla, in March 1907, Shark was stationed at the United States Naval Academy, at Annapolis, Maryland, in the spring of 1907.Template:Sfn
In April 1908, Shark was taken to the New York Navy Yard, and decommissioned there on 21 April. Loaded onto the collier Template:USS, Shark and her sister ship Template:USS, comprised the auxiliary's deck cargo as she proceeded, via the Suez Canal, to the Philippines. Shark was relaunched soon after her arrival at the Naval Station at Cavite, in July, and was recommissioned on 14 August 1908.Template:Sfn
Asiatic Fleet and WWI
Over the next several years, the submarine torpedo boat operated out of Cavite, interspersing training with periodic upkeep and repair work. On 17 November 1911, Shark was officially renamed A-7.Template:Sfn
During World War I, A-7 and her sister ships, were based at Cavite, and carried out patrols of the entrance to Manila Bay.Template:Sfn
Engine explosion
In the early spring of 1917, Lieutenant (jg) Arnold Marcus assumed command of A-7. On 24 July 1917, shortly after her engine had been overhauled, gasoline fumes ignited, causing an explosion and fire while in the course of a patrol in Manila Bay. After Lieutenant Marcus and his men battled the blaze, he ordered the crew topside and into the boats that had been summoned alongside. As the last man to emerge from the interior of the crippled submersible, Marcus sent up distress signals to the nearby monitor Template:USS, then took the helm himself in an attempt to beach the ship. He refused medical treatment until all his men had been attended to and had to be ordered to leave his post. Marcus and six of his crew died the next day, 25 July 1917, from the effects of the explosion and fire that had ravaged A-7. The last remaining member of the crew, Fireman Second Class Arthur M. Jacobs, succumbed to his injuries on 1 August 1917. The Navy recognized Marcus' heroism by naming the destroyer Marcus (DD-321), in his honor.Template:Sfn
Fate
Placed in ordinary at Cavite, on 1 April 1918, A-7 was officially decommissioned on 12 December 1919. She was given the alphanumeric hull number SS-8 on 17 July 1920. A-7 was initially advertised for sale in the 16th Naval District. She was subsequently authorized for use as a target in 1921, and struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 16 January 1922.Template:Sfn