USS O-1

USS O-1 (SS-62) was the lead ship of her class of submarines built for the United States Navy during World War I.

Description
The O-class submarines were designed to meet a Navy requirement for coastal defense boats. The submarines had a length of 172 ft overall, a beam of 18 ft and a mean draft of 14 ft. They displaced 521 LT on the surface and 629 LT submerged. The O-class submarines had a crew of 29 officers and enlisted men. They had a diving depth of 200 ft.

For surface running, the boats were powered by two 440 bhp diesel engines, each driving one propeller shaft. When submerged each propeller was driven by a 370 hp electric motor. They could reach 14 kn on the surface and 10.5 kn underwater. On the surface, the O class had a range of 5500 nmi at 11.5 kn.

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. The O-class submarines were also armed with a single 3"/50 caliber deck gun.

Construction and career
O-1 was laid down on 26 March 1917 at the Portsmouth Navy Yard in Kittery, Maine. She was launched on 9 July 1918, and commissioned on 5 November 1918 with Lieutenant Commander Norman L. Kirk in command. Commissioned just before the Armistice with Germany, O-1 operated in the Atlantic coastal waters from Cape Cod to Key West, Florida, after World War I. Reclassified a second-line submarine on 25 July 1924, and first-line on 6 June 1928, O-1 was converted to an experimental vessel on 28 December 1930, and operated in this capacity out of the submarine base at New London, Connecticut, until decommissioning on 11 June 1931. She was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 18 May 1938 and sold for scrap.