USS C-1

Career
Ordered:
Laid down:
Launched:	4 October 1906
Commissioned:	30 June 1908
Decommissioned:	4 August 1919
Fate:	sold for scrap
Stricken:
General Characteristics
Displacement:	238 tons
Length:	105 ft 4 in (32 m)
Beam:	13 ft 11 in (4.2 m)
Draft:	10 ft (30.5 m)
Propulsion:
Speed:	10 knots (19 km/h)
Range:
Complement:	15 officers and men
Armament:	2 x 18 in (457 mm) torpedo tubes
Motto:

USS C-1 (SS-9) was the lead ship of her class of submarine 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, as Octopus, making her the only ship of the United States Navy named for the octopus, an eight-armed mollusk having a soft sac-like body. Octopus was launched on 4 October 1906 sponsored by Miss F. Webster, and commissioned on 30 June 1908 with Lieutenant C. E. Courtney in command. She was renamed C-1 on 17 November 1911.

Assigned to the Second Submarine Flotilla, Octopus operated out of Newport, Rhode Island, and New York City until 9 October 1908. Tests and experiments with both submarine design and the tactical use of her type continued from Norfolk, Virginia, and Newport until she was placed in reserve at Charleston, South Carolina, on 14 February 1910.

Recommissioned 15 April 1910, the submarine conducted experiments and served as training vessel at Newport until 10 May 1913. C-1 was reassigned to First Submarine Group, Torpedo Flotilla, Atlantic Fleet, and from 29 May to 7 December 1913, operated out of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. She served in Panamanian waters in training, and later, on patrol during World War I, until 4 August 1919 when she was decommissioned at Coco Solo in the Panama Canal Zone. Here she was sold 13 April 1920.

References

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.

External links

• history.navy.mil: USS C-1
• navsource.org: USS Octopus
• hazegray.org: USS Octopus