USS S-18 (SS-123)

USS S-18 taking a towline off Taboga Island in the Bay of Panama in the 1920s.
History
Builder:	Fore River Shipyard, Quincy, Massachusetts
Laid down:	15 August 1918
Launched:	29 April 1920
Commissioned:	3 April 1924
Decommissioned:	29 October 1945
Struck:	13 November 1945
Fate:	Sold for scrap, 9 November 1946
General characteristics
Type:	S-class direct-drive diesel and electric submarine, S-1 type
Displacement:	930 tons (945 t) surfaced, standard, 1,094 tons (1,112 t) submerged
Length:	219 ft 3 in (66.83 m)
Beam:	20 ft 8 in (6.30 m)
Draft:	17 ft 3 in (5.26 m)
Propulsion:	2 × NELSECO 8-EB-15 8-cylinder 4-cycle direct-drive diesel engines, 600 hp (450 kW) each 2 × 60-cell Exide paste batteries 2 × Ridgeway electric motors, 1,175 hp (876 kW) each, two shafts
Speed:	13 knots (24 km/h) surfaced, 1939 9 knots (17 km/h) submerged
Range:	3,420 nautical miles (6,330 km) @ 6.5 knots (12 km/h), 8,950 nautical miles (16,580 km) @ 9.5 knots (18 km/h) with fuel in main ballast tanks
Endurance:	20 hours @ 5 knots (9 km/h)
Test depth:	200 ft (60 m)
Complement:	4 officers, 39 enlisted (1939)
Armament:	4 × 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes forward  12 torpedoes 1 × 4 in (100 mm) / 50 caliber deck gun

USS S-18 (SS-123) was a first-group (S-1 or "Holland") S-class submarine of the United States Navy. Her keel was laid down on 15 August 1918 by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation's Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts. She was launched on 29 April 1920 sponsored by Miss Virginia Bell Johnson, and commissioned on 3 April 1924 with Lieutenant Elliot M. Senn in command.

From 1924-1929, S-18 operated out of New London, Connecticut, primarily off the New England coast but with annual deployments to the Caribbean Sea for winter maneuvers and fleet problems. Transferred to the Pacific fleet in 1930, she departed New London on 24 May 1930, operated off the California coast into the fall, and arrived at Pearl Harbor, on 7 December 1930.

For the next 11 years, S-18 remained based at Pearl Harbor. In September 1941, she returned to the West Coast. Three months later, after the United States had entered World War II, submarine S-18 was ordered to the Aleutian Islands.

A unit of Submarine Division 41 (SubDiv 41), S-18 moved north in mid-January 1942. Into March 1942, she conducted defensive patrols out of the new and still incomplete submarine base at Dutch Harbor on Amaknak Island in Unalaska, Alaska. In mid-March 1942, she got underway for San Diego, California, underwent repairs there until mid-May 1942, and then returned to the Aleutians.