Career
Ordered:	3 March 1916
Laid down:	6 March 1916
Launched:	29 September 1917
Commissioned:	19 October 1918
Fate:	scuttled 20 November 1931
Struck:	29 May 1930
General Characteristics
Displacement:	491 tons surfaced, 566 tons submerged
Length:	175 feet (53 meters)
Beam:	16 feet 7 inches (5 meters)
Draft:	13 feet 11 inches (4.2 meters)
Propulsion:	Busch Sulzer Brothers 1000 hp diesels Diehl 800 hp electric motors single shaft (746 hp diesel 597 kW electric)
Fuel:	18,588 US gallons (70 cubic meters)
Speed:	14 knots surfaced, 11 knots submerged
Depth:	200 feet (60 meters)
Complement:	two officers and 27 men
Armament:	one three-inch/50-caliber (76mm/50) gun; four 18-inch (457mm) torpedo tubes, eight torpedoes

USS O-12 (SS-73) was an O-class submarine of the United States Navy. Her keel was laid down on 6 March 1916 by the Lake Torpedo Boat Company in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

The later O-boats (O-11 through O-16) were designed by Lake Torpedo Boat to different specifications from the earlier ones designed by Electric Boat. They performed much less well, and are sometimes considered a separate class.

O-12 was launched on 29 September 1917, sponsored by Mrs. Homer S. Cummings, and commissioned on 18 October 1918 with Lieutenant Commander J.E. Austin in command.

O-12 spent much of her career as a unit of Submarine Division 1, based at Coco Solo, Panama Canal Zone. In 1921, she was awarded a Battle Efficiency Pennant and trophy for gunnery (gun and torpedo). She decommissioned on 17 June 1924 after just five and a half years of service, and was placed in reserve at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.

Struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 29 July 1930, she transferred to the United States Shipping Board for conversion by the Philadelphia Navy Yard for use by Lake and Dannenhower, Inc., of Bridgeport, Connecticut, on Hubert Wilkins's and Lincoln Ellsworth's Arctic Expedition of geophysical investigation. During this expedition she was named Nautilus.

Following the expedition, O-12 was returned to the Navy Department. She was scuttled on 20 November 1931 in a Norwegian fjord.

See USS Nautilus and ships named Nautilus for other ships of this name.

References