USS Tuna/G-2 (SS-27), also known as "Submarine No. 27", was a G-classsubmarine of the United States Navy. While the four G-boats were nominally all of a class, they differed enough in significant details that they are sometimes considered to be four unique boats, each in a class by herself.[4] She was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the tuna, a large, vigorous, spiny-finned fish highly esteemed for sport and food.
Tuna's keel was laid down on 20 October 1909, by the Lake Torpedo Boat Company, Bridgeport, Connecticut. She was renamed G-2 on 17 November 1911, and launched on 10 January 1912, sponsored by Ms. Marjorie F. Miller. G-2 was towed to the New York Navy Yard after the termination of the Lake contract on 7 November 1913, where she was completed, and commission on 1 December 1913.[5]
Service history
Departing New York under tow of submarine tenderOzark, ex-monitorArkansas, the submersible torpedo boat arrived at the Naval Torpedo Station, Newport, Rhode Island, on 28 February 1914. Attached to the Atlantic Submarine Flotilla, G-2 spent the next five months conducting dive training and engineering exercises with G-1 in Long Island Sound and Narragansett Bay. During these trials the boat made six submerged runs to a maximum depth of 37ft (11m). Her White & Middletongasoline engine proved troublesome and after the portarmature shaft failed on 31 March, the boat was towed to New York for repairs. While there, financial considerations led to G-2 being put in reserve commission on 15 June 1914.[5]
G-2 was placed in full commission at New York, on 6 February 1915. Attached to Division Three, Submarine Flotilla, Atlantic Fleet, the boat joined G-1, tender Fulton and tugSonoma, for a cruise to Norfolk, Virginia, on 25 March. Arriving there two days later, the submersible conducted maneuvers in Hampton Roads before proceeding to Charleston, South Carolina, in April, arriving there on 17 April. Following a short yard period for repairs, the division proceeded back to New York, mooring alongside the 135th Street pier on 9 May.[5]
On 18 May, G-2 joined other warships and passed in review before PresidentWoodrow Wilson, who looked on from the yacht Mayflower. The boat then sailed to Nantucket, Massachusetts, to participate in a war problem off Block Island, before unloading her torpedoes at Newport, on 25 May. Ordered back to New York for an overhaul, the submersible again transited the familiar waters of Long Island Sound, before arriving at the mouth of the East River, on 22 June. While standing down the river with G-4, the two boats collided with submarine K-2,[6] in an unusual three-boat accident. Fortunately, none of the boats suffered any damage. G-2 entered the Navy Yard there for an extended overhaul later that day.[5]
Escorted to Provincetown, Massachusetts, by Ozark and tug Iwana, G-2 commenced final acceptance trials from 1–10 December. Following those successful evolutions, during which the Trial Board noted numerous items requiring modernization, the boat moved back to New York for an overhaul, on 14 January 1916. Six months later, G-2 shifted to the Lake Torpedo Boat Company yard for completion, receiving new diving rudder gear, hydroplanes, electrical wiring, and a new crankshaft. This yard work required extensive alterations and the boat did not return to service until convoyed to New London, Connecticut, by Sunbeam II, on 28 June 1917.[5]
On 21 August, G-2 sailed to Boston, Massachusetts, via the Cape Cod Canal, to operate with the destroyerAylwin, submarine chaserSC-6, and steam yacht Margaret. There the boat helped a Navy Experimental Board, embarked in Margaret, to carry out various sound detector tests in nearby waters. The submarine also conducted practice approaches and served as an instruction platform for officer and enlisted submarine students.[5]
Shifting back to New London, on 20 October, G-2 combined work on sound detection devices with training for the newly established Submarine School off Block Island and in Long Island Sound. During seven months of operations, she experimented with magnetic detectors and dragging devices and tried out new periscopes and other submarine equipment. The boat carried out these tests with section patrol boatsWacondah and Thetis, as well as numerous subchasers. Learning of the possible proximity of German U-boats, she conducted four-day patrols off Block Island, in late June 1918, and again in mid-July.[5]
G-2 continued schoolship duty out of New London, through the end of World War I, testing listening and flare signaling devices, among other pieces of equipment. On 30 August, for example, her crew tested the strength of the pressure hull, and the reliability of electric equipment, against depth charge explosions. On 12 September, Thetis experimented with a magnetic detector while G-2 lay on the bottom in 86ft (26m) of water, and in November, G-2 even conducted experimental work with patrol seaplanes. This duty ended in January 1919, when she was scheduled for inactivation.[5]
Fate
Decommissioned on 2 April 1919, the boat was designated as a target for testing depth charges and ordnance nets in Niantic, Connecticut. During inspection by a six-man maintenance crew on 30 July, the boat suddenly flooded and sank at her moorings in Two Tree Channel, near Niantic. She went down in 13.5 fathoms (81ft; 24.7m), drowning three of the inspection crew. Too deep and too old to salvage, the submarine was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 11 September.[5]
↑ Note: DANFS contains a typographical error here. The entry for G-2 states the boat that she collided with is K-22, yet there was never a boat by this name in the USN. The K-class ended with the K-8, and HMS K22 never visited New York City during its service. K-2 was known to be in the New York Navy Yard during the time of this incident, and it is likely that she is the boat that the other two collided with. The DANFS entries for K-2 and G-4 make no mention of the collision.
Gardiner, Robert & Gray, Randal, eds. (1985). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906–1921. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN0-85177-245-5.
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