OTD in 1920, the following exchange took place between freighter S.S. Alanthus & what appeared to be a buoy waving a white flag, as seen in the photo [submarine rescue]

X.com ^ | Sep 2, 2026 | 𝗢𝗹𝗱 𝗦𝘂𝗯𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗿 @USN_Submariner

[ransomnote]

𝗢𝗹𝗱 𝗦𝘂𝗯𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗿

@USN_Submariner

·
9h

To hell, by compass

OTD in 1920, the following exchange took place between freighter S.S. Alanthus & what appeared to be a buoy waving a white flag, as seen in the photo:
• Alanthus: What ship are you?
• Submarine S-5
• Alanthus: What nationality
• United States
• Alanthus: Where are you bound
• To hell, by compass

A day earlier, S-class submarine USS S-5 (SS-110) attempted to quickly dive during a drill, but forgot to close the induction valve.

Water poured into the forward compartment, forcing the crew to abandon it. They blew the main tank but quickly sank to the ocean floor 180 feet below the surface.

From there they blew the aft tanks & the stern rose at a 60-degree angle with the bow still on the seabed.

Struggling to stand & running out of air, the crew began using hand tools to drill through the hull at the stern.

Progress was extremely slow, but they finally created a hole after 16 hours of drilling to deploy a flag made from a copper pipe & a white t-shirt.

Luckily Alanthus spotted them &, after having the above exchange, worked to drill a larger escape hole. All 40 crew members survived.

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TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: alanthus; atlantus; pleasestop; ss110; ssalanthus; ssatlantus; submarine; usss5

[Dr. Franklin]

Here's whats left of her today:

Well, not much is left of the ship above the waterline now over a hundred years after she sank. The aerial view confirms that:
https://maps.apple.com/frame?map=satellite¢er=38.944361%2C-74.971200&span=0.001252%2C0.002899

[Bigg Red]

Amazing

[JAKraig]

Patrick Henry FBM 599G
Auxilaryman

Something very similar happened to us going from Groten (New London, Conn) down to Panama headed to Bremerton, WA for off load of weapons. While in port at Groten the ICman had taken fuses off the headvalve electrodes (they detect water so that when the induction valve goes below the water they automatically close) one of them was being replaced. We had a Quartermaster chief on the BCP, hardly a heavy I don’t know how in the world he ever qualified the watch. Anyway down in berthing in my bunk water, salt water started spraying from my vent, not a good sign. I ran up to control with flooding reports coming from several compartments. When I got to control, the board was not green, the head valve displayed a Red Circle, OPEN while we were below 70 ft, everyone was yelling I shouted shut the head valve, it didn’t happen right away because the BCP operator didn’t know what he was doing. It got closed but not before we took on a lot of water, the fan room filled and distributed seawater to everywhere. It took a long time to get good control of the weight before we were able to trim with a full bell. We stayed on the surface the rest of the way to the Cape.

We pulled into Cape Canaveral and were there for weeks for repairs, I think the Old Man took a pretty good hit on that one. But we got some pretty good liberty on Coco Beach. I don’t remember the dates it was likely early 1971, but I’m not sure. It was just before the yards

[Mr. Lucky]

You’ve got your bases pretty well covered.