USS Plunger, with officer in conning tower hatch
Career
Ordered:
Laid down:	21 May 1901
Launched:	1 February 1902
Commissioned:	19 September 1903
Decommissioned:	24 February 1913
Fate:	Sold for scrap
General Characteristics
Displacement:	107 tons
Length:	64 ft (20 m)
Beam:	12 ft (4 m)
Draft:	11 ft (3 m)
Speed:	8 knots (15 km/h) surface, 7 knots (13 km/h) submerged
Complement:	7
Armament:	1 18-inch torpedo tube

The first USS Plunger (SS-2) was one of the earliest submarines used by the United States Navy. She was the lead boat of the Plunger-class and later renamed A-1 as an A-type submarine.

Early service

She was originally laid down on 21 May 1901 at Elizabeth, New Jersey by the Crescent Shipyard of Lewis Nixon; launched on 1 February 1902; and commissioned at the Holland Company yard at New Suffolk, New York on 19 September 1903, Lt. Charles P. Nelson in command.

Assigned to the Naval Torpedo Station at Newport, Rhode Island for experimental torpedo work, Plunger operated locally from that facility for the next two years, a period of time broken only by an overhaul at the Holland yard at New Suffolk between March and November 1904. Besides testing machinery, armament, and tactics, the submarine torpedo boat also served as a training ship for the crews of new submersibles emerging from the builder's yards.

In August 1905, Plunger underwent two weeks of upkeep before clearing the yard on 22 August towed by the tug USS Apache , bound for New York where she would conduct trials near the home of President Theodore Roosevelt. Upon her arrival that afternoon, the submarine torpedo boat moored alongside the tug and prepared for a visit by the Chief Executive.

President Roosevelt

The following morning Plunger charged her batteries and made a series of five short dives before returning alongside Apache to recharge batteries for three and a half hours. At 3:30 p.m. that afternoon, the President came on board Plunger, which stood down the bay and made a series of dives before returning to moor alongside the tug almost two hours later. Roosevelt spent almost another hour on board the submarine before he disembarked.

Roosevelt's novel voyage prompted much interest. On 6 September, the President wrote from Oyster Bay to Hermann Speck von Steinberg : "I myself am both amused and interested as to what you say about the interest excited about my trip in the Plunger. I went down in it chiefly because I did not like to have the officers and enlisted men think I wanted them to try things I was reluctant to try myself. I believe a good deal can be done with these submarines, although there is always the danger of people getting carried away with the idea and thinking that they can be of more use than they possibly could be." To another correspondent he declared that never in his life had he experienced "such a diverting day...nor so much enjoyment in so few hours..."

Later service

Decommissioned on 3 November 1905, Plunger remained inactive until recommissioned on 23 February 1907, Lt. Guy W. S. Castle in command. On 7 March 1907, she was assigned to the First Submarine Flotilla , based at the New York Navy Yard, joining sisterships USS Porpoise and USS Shark. On 3 May 1909, Ensign Chester Nimitz, the future fleet admiral who would later say that he considered the submarines of the time "a cross between a Jules Verne fantasy and a humpbacked whale", assumed command of Plunger. That September, the submarine torpedo boat visited New York City to take part in the Hudson-Fulton celebrations.

Reassigned to the Charleston Navy Yard , Plunger reached that port on 24 October 1909 and moored alongside the gunboat USS Castine , the parent ship for the Atlantic Submarine Fleet . Shortly thereafter, Castine's medical officer, Assistant Surgeon Micajah Boland, inspected Plunger and two other submarine torpedo boats. His report graphically described living conditions on these boats. He found "their sanitary condition to be far from satisfactory, notwithstanding the fact that they had been at sea only about forty-five hours."

Assigned to the Reserve Torpedo Division on 12 April 1910, Plunger was renamed A-1 on 17 November 1911. Stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 24 February 1913 and having been authorized for use as an "experimental target," the submersible was designated as "Target E" on 29 August 1916. Ultimately hoisted on board the hulk of the former monitor USS Puritan, the partially dismantled torpedo boat was authorized for sale on 25 August 1921, on an "as is, where is" basis. She was sold for scrap on 26 January 1922.

See USS Plunger and USS A-1 for other ships of the same names.