Return to Naval Historical Center home page. Return to Online Library listing

DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY -- NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER
805 KIDDER BREESE SE -- WASHINGTON NAVY YARD
WASHINGTON DC 20374-5060

Photo # NH 41742:  USS R-4 in a harbor, during the 1920s

Online Library of Selected Images:
-- U.S. NAVY SHIPS --

USS R-4 (Submarine # 81, later SS-81), 1919-1946

USS R-4, a 569-ton R-1 class submarine built at Quincy, Massachusetts, was commissioned in late March 1919. She served along the U.S. East Coast and in the Caribbean before passing through the Panama Canal to the Pacific in late May 1921. R-4 was based at San Pedro, California, and at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, until early 1931, when she returned to the Atlantic for a ten-year tour as a training submarine.

In May 1941, with the Second World War crisis increasingly threatening, R-4 was sent south for operational patrol duty in the waters between Florida and Cuba. For the next four years she was employed there and off Mexico, both in active defense against German U-boats and as a unit of the Fleet Sonar School. In June 1945, with the fighting over in Europe, she went to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to be decommissioned. USS R-4 was stricken from the list of Naval vessels in July and sold for scrapping in January 1946.

This page features, and provides links to, all the views we have concerning USS R-4 (Submarine # 81, later SS-81).

For more images related to this submarine, see:

  • USS R-4 (Submarine # 81, later SS-81) -- In Groups with Other Ships.


    If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions."

    Click on the small photograph to prompt a larger view of the same image.

    Photo #: NH 41742

    USS R-4
    (SS-81)

    In a harbor, during the 1920s.

    U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

    Online Image: 88KB; 740 x 590 pixels

     
    Photo #: NH 41740

    USS R-4
    (SS-81)

    Underway in October 1923.

    U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

    Online Image: 75KB; 740 x 465 pixels

     
    Photo #: NH 77282

    USS R-4
    (SS-81)

    In drydock during the early 1920s.

    Courtesy of Mrs. C.R. DeSpain, 1973. From the scrapbooks of Fred M. Butler.

    U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

    Online Image: 80KB; 740 x 495 pixels

     
    Photo #: NH 92004

    USS R-4
    (SS-81)

    Submerging, circa the early 1920s.

    Collection of Joseph A. Hendricks.

    U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

    Online Image: 47KB; 740 x 440 pixels

     


    For more images related to this submarine, see:

  • USS R-4 (Submarine # 81, later SS-81) -- In Groups with Other Ships.


    If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions."


    Return to Naval Historical Center home page.

    Page made 27 January 2006