USS D-1 (SS-17) was the lead ship of the D-class submarines of the United States Navy. Her keel was laid down by Fore River Shipbuilding Company in Quincy, Massachusetts, under a subcontract from Electric Boat Company of Groton, Connecticut, as Narwhal, making her the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the narwhal, a gray and white arctic whale which averages 20 feet in length, the male of which has a long, twisted ivory tusk of commercial value. Narwhal was launched on 8 April 1909 sponsored by Mrs. Gregory C. Davison, and commissioned on 23 November 1909.

USS D-1
History
United States
NameUSS Narwhal
Builder
Laid down16 April 1908
Launched8 April 1909
Sponsored byMrs. Gregory C. Davison
Commissioned23 November 1909
Decommissioned8 February 1922
RenamedUSS D-1, 17 November 1911
FateSold for scrap, 5 June 1922
General characteristics
Class and typeD-class submarine
Displacement288 long tons (293 t)
Length134 ft 10 in (41.10 m)
Beam13 ft 11 in (4.24 m)
Draft11 ft 8 in (3.56 m)
Speed13 knots (24 km/h; 15 mph) on the surface
Complement15 officers and men
Armament4 × 18-inch (450 mm) torpedo tubes

Service history

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Narwhal joined the Atlantic Torpedo Fleet, based at Newport, Rhode Island. These pioneer submarines operated very actively in diving grounds in Cape Cod and Narragansett Bay, Long Island Sound and Block Island Sound, and Chesapeake Bay, and off Norfolk, Virginia; on target ranges proving torpedoes; experimental operations; and cruises along the East Coast. Narwhal was renamed D-1 on 17 November 1911.

From 20 January – 11 April 1913, the submarine flotilla cruised to the Caribbean Sea, and from 5 January – 21 April 1914 visited Gulf of Mexico and Florida ports.

During World War I, D-1 trained crews and classes of officers and served in experiments in the Third Naval District. After overhaul, D-1 was placed in reserve commission on 9 September 1919, continuing her work of training new submariners along with experimental and development work.

On 15 July 1921, she was placed in commission, in ordinary. She was towed to Philadelphia Navy Yard arriving on 30 January 1922. Decommissioned on 8 February, her hulk was sold on 5 June.

Whale encounter

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The New York World quoted Lt. Chester Nimitz, in command of Narwhal in August 1911, with regards to an encounter with whales that the submarine had. This encounter is not referenced anywhere else and may be journalistic hyperbole.[1]

References

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  1. ^ World magazine Wikimedia

  This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entries can be found here and here.

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