A history of US submarines from the Revolution to today

The world's first combat submarine was the Turtle, used during the American Revolution. The Turtle was intended to break up the British blockade of Boston Harbor, but the fleet left before the Turtle could be put into use. The submarine was used in three unsuccessful attacks on British warships and sank under enemy fire in October 1776.

During the Civil War, Union forces had the USS Alligator, while the South had the H.L. Hunley. The Alligator moved via a hand-cranked propeller, and its weaponry was two limpet mines that could be attached with magnets to the hull of an enemy ship. The Alligator was lost in a storm off Cape Hatteras in 1863 on its way to its first combat mission.

In the South, the Confederacy had the H.L. Hunley, which could carry a crew of eight. Its weaponry was a spar torpedo that could attach a bomb to an enemy ship. In 1864, the Hunley sank the USS Housatonic in Charleston Harbor, but the submarine itself sank on its way home.

The remains of the sunken H.L. Hunley and its eight lost crew members were not found until 1990, and the submarine was raised in 2000. The crew was buried with full military honors in a Charleston cemetery in a ceremony that drew more than 10,000 people.

In 1881, inventor John Philip Holland designed and built a submarine, the Fenian Ram, named after the Fenian Brotherhood, an Irish independence group that wanted to sink British naval ships. In a dispute over money, the Brotherhood stole the Fenian Ram but did not know how to operate it, and it rusted away.

The U.S. Navy bought its first submarine, the USS Holland, in 1900. The Holland was used to train cadets, enlisted men, and officers in preparation for working on other submarines being built. It was later sold for scrap.

Inventor John Philip Holland sold several designs to both the U.S. Navy and the British Navy. His Holland Torpedo Boat Company later became the Electric Boat Company. It was acquired in 1952 by General Dynamics, which remains a leading submarine manufacturer today.

During World War I, the U.S. diesel-electric submarine K-5 patrolled off the Azores to protect shipping and prevent German ships from using the Portuguese islands as a base. In 1918, the submarine suffered an explosion due to improper venting by the crew and had to return to the United States.

U.S. submarines patrolled the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea in World War II to protect against German U-boats. By the middle of 1943, U.S. forces had reduced the threat of U-boats enough that most of the nation's submarines were redeployed to the Pacific Ocean.

U.S. military forces relied heavily on submarines during World War II. U.S. submarines sank more than 540,000 tons of Japanese naval vessels and nearly 5 million tons of merchant ships—more than half of all the vessels lost by Japan. By sinking merchant ships, U.S. submarines could block raw materials from reaching Japan for its war effort.

In World War II, U.S. submarines became known as the "lifeboat league" for their role in picking up downed pilots. By the end of the war, more than 500 air crewmembers were rescued this way, including President George H.W. Bush. Bush was flying a bombing mission over a Japanese island when his plane was hit, so he parachuted to the sea, where several hours passed before a submarine rescued him.

During World War II, the United States lost 52 submarines and 3,505 crew members. It was the highest rate of those killed in action of all the branches of the nation's military.

In 1953, the USS Tunny became the first submarine to launch a guided missile. The Tunny had seen significant combat in the Pacific during World War II before it was modified to fire the Regulus missile. The submarine had to surface for the missile to be fired.

Launched in 1954, the USS Nautilus was the world's first nuclear-powered submarine. Before nuclear power, submarines were forced to surface regularly because the diesel engines needed fresh air or to be refueled. Nuclear power meant submarines could stay submerged for months.

The USS Nautilus was the first submarine to travel under the Arctic polar ice cap, across the North Pole, as part of the U.S. defense strategy against the Soviet Union. Its first attempt was blocked by drifting ice, but its second attempt succeeded, and the submarine traveled 1,000 miles from the Bering Sea to the coast of Greenland.

In 1960, the USS George Washington became the first submerged submarine to launch the Polaris missile. The submarine's commanding officer sent a message to President Dwight Eisenhower saying, "Polaris from out of the deep to target. Perfect."

The largest submarines in the U.S. fleet are the Ohio class. The U.S. Navy has 14 nuclear-powered submarines, the first of which, the USS Ohio, was commissioned in 1981. The Ohio class submarines are 170 meters long.

During Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm in 1991, the USS Louisville became the first submarine to launch a Tomahawk cruise missile in combat. The submarine traveled 1,400 miles through the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea to launch the missile. In 2003, during Operation Iraqi Freedom, the submarine fired missiles into Iraq.

The U.S. Navy has three Seawolf-class submarines, the first of which, the USS Seawolf, was commissioned in 1997. They are extremely quiet and fast. The USS Connecticut was commissioned in 1998, and the USS Jimmy Carter was commissioned in 2005.

Currently, the U.S. military has 53 fast attack submarines, 14 ballistic missile submarines, and four guided-missile submarines. The ballistic missile submarines carry most of the nation's nuclear deterrent arsenal.

The U.S. Navy has commissioned more than a dozen Virginia-class submarines. They have better capabilities for coastal fighting operations than the Seawolves have, and they handle better in shallow water.

The ballistic missile submarines of the U.S. Navy are known as "boomers." They are designed to carry nuclear warheads and to be exceptionally stealthy. Under terms of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, effective in 2011, the submarines can carry a maximum of 20 missiles each.

Divers in 2020 found what was believed to be the wreckage of the USS Grenadier, which was bombed by the Japanese military in World War II and sank. Its 76 crew members survived the wreck, but they were taken prisoner by Japanese forces and subjected to torture and starvation for more than two years. Four of the crew members died during their imprisonment.

In 2020, the U.S. Navy signed a $9.5 billion deal with General Dynamics for the first two Columbia-class submarines, which will take over for the fleet's Ohio class of ballistic missile submarines. Work is expected to be completed by April 2030.

The U.S. Navy's newest submarine, the USS Montana, was launched in March 2021 in Virginia. Construction on the submarine began in 2015.