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NavSource Online: Submarine Photo Archive

L-8 (SS-48)

Radio Call Sign: November - Yankee - Uniform
L-5 Class Submarine: Laid down, 24 February 1915, at Portsmouth Navy Yard, Kittery, ME.; Launched, 23 April 1917; Commissioned, USS L-8, 30 August 1917; Designated (SS-48), 17 July 1920; Decommissioned, and struck from the Naval Register, 15 November 1922, at Hampton Roads; Final Disposition, sold for scrapping, 21 December 1925.

Specifications: Displacement, surfaced: 456 t., submerged: 524 t..; Length 165'; Beam 14' 9"; Draft 13' 3"; Speed, surfaced 14 kts, submerged 10.5 kts; Depth Limit 200'; Complement 2 Officers, 26 Enlisted; Armament, four 18", torpedo tubes, 8 torpedoes, one 3"/23 deck gun; Propulsion, diesel-electric, Busch Sulzer Brothers Diesel Engine Co., diesel engines, 1,200hp, Fuel Capacity, 17,800 gal., Diehl Manufacture Co. electric motors, 800hp, Battery Cells 120, single propeller.
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L-8147k L-8 (SS-48) under construction at the Portsmouth Navy Yard, Kittery, Maine, 13 April 1916. Her bow plating is as yet incomplete. Note the overhead crane spanning the width of the wooden shiphouse. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph # NH 46541.
L-8 / O-193k Keel laying ceremony for the O-1 (SS-62) at the Portsmouth Navy Yard, Kittery, Maine, 26 March 1917. L-8 (SS-48) is under construction in the left background. She was launched on 23 April 1917. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph # NH 46543. Photo added 06 March 06.
L-889k Launching of the L-8 (SS-48) at the Portsmouth Navy Yard, Kittery, Maine, 23 April 1917. Photograph printed on a color-tinted postal card. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph # NH 85278. Courtesy of Commander Donald J. Robinson, USN(MSC), 1977.
L-864kLaunching of the L-8 (SS-48) at Portsmouth Navy Yard, Kittery, ME., 23 April 1917. Note the tug boat in the back of the photo over the bridge of the L-8 makes it look as if it is attached to the boats superstructure.
US Navy photo courtesy of subnet.com.
G-2 & 4 L-8107k At the New London Submarine Base, Groton, Connecticut, about February 1918. The "boats" are (from left to right): G-4 (SS-26); G-2 (SS-27); and L-8 (SS-48).
Courtesy of the Naval Historical Foundation. Collection of Lieutenant O.E. Wightman. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph # NH 80743
L-6, 7 & 8 35k L-6 (SS-45), L-8 (SS-48), and L-7 (SS-46) possibly at Ponta Delgada, Azores in early November 1918, with Submarine Division 6 just prior to the signing of the Armistice 11 November.
Text courtesy of DANFS. Photo courtesy of Ms. Patricia Kipp Combs.
L-8132k L-8 (SS-48) anchored with crew on deck, possibly at the New London Submarine Base, Groton, Connecticut, date unknown. She displays Lake's trademark watertight superstructure, with limber holes to allow the bow portion to flood quickly for a fast dive.
Partial text courtesy of U.S. Submarines Through 1945, An Illustrated Design History by Norman Friedman. Naval Institute Press.
US Navy photo # 80-G-1025029, from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), courtesy of Daniel Dunham.
L-827k Simon Lake's L-8 (SS-48) (built by Porthsmouth) shows his characteristic ship-type stern, with its horizontal chisel shape, which C & R preferred to E.B.'s much less buoyant one. The cylinder forward of the bridge houses a 3-in Mk IX gun. The bankruptcy of Lake's original company delayed construction of these boats, whem completed, they embodied such war modifications as chariot bridge and retractable (housing) periscopes.
Note the signal bell set into the keel forward. During WW I, such beels were superseded by Fessenden oscillators, which used plates set into flooded tanks. The battery tanks were set above the two main ballast tanks, one below the torpedo room forward and one below the control room amidships.
Note that Lake subdivided his boats more completley than did E.B., with seperate engine & motor rooms aft, and with a seperate tiller flat abaft the after trim tank (which was abaft the motor room, connected to it by an access trunk). He concentrated pumps & other auxillaries to the large space beneath the control room, rather than (as in E.B.'s design) along the propeller shafts abaft the motors. The two periscopes flank the retractable antenna mast. This class incorporated Lake's patented air lock abaft the conning tower.
Drawing by Jim Christley. Text courtesy of U.S. Submarines Through 1945, An Illustrated Design History by Norman Friedman. Naval Institute Press.
Lake type97k Submarines at a West Coast port, circa 1919-1922. The Lake type L-8 (SS-48) is at the outboard (left) end of the nest, with her sister, L-7 (SS-46), in the middle (3rd from left). H-3 (SS-30) is between them, with another Electric Boat Company submarine second from right. The inboard (right) "boat" and that in the foreground are the other two units of the Lake-designed L-5 class; L-5 (SS-44) and L-6 (SS-45). Note piloting station details, periscope, and wide deck of the Lake type L-boat in the foreground.
USNHC photo # NH 103256. Collection of Chief Engineman Virgil Breland, USN. Donated by Mrs. E.H. Breland, 1979. Photo added 06 March 06.
Lake type89k Submarines at a West Coast port, circa 1919-1922. The Lake type L-8 (SS-48) is at the outboard (left) end of the nest, with her sister, L-7 (SS-46), in the middle (3rd from left). H-3 (SS-30) is between them, with another Electric Boat Company submarine second from right. The inboard (right) "boat" and that in the foreground are the other two units of the Lake-designed L-5 class; L-5 (SS-44) and L-6 (SS-45). Note the "Y-tube" hydrophone mounted on the bow of the submarine in the foreground.
USNHC photo # NH 103255. Collection of Chief Engineman Virgil Breland, USN. Donated by Mrs. E.H. Breland, 1979. Photo added 06 March 06.
L-893k Magnetic Torpedo Exploder Test. A torpedo equipped with a magnetic influence exploder passes under the hulked submarine L-8 (SS-48), during tests off Newport, Rhode Island, 26 May 1926. This torpedo failed to explode. Copied from "U.S. Naval Administration in World War II, Bureau of Ordnance: Naval Torpedo Station, Newport, R.I., Volume VII", held by the Navy Department Library, 1978. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph # NH 88457. Photo added 06 March 06.
L-881k Magnetic Torpedo Exploder Test. The hulked submarine L-8 (SS-48) is sunk by a torpedo equipped with a magnetic influence exploder, in tests off Newport, Rhode Island, 26 May 1926. This was the only destructive test conducted during 19 years of pre-World War II magnetic influence torpedo exploder development. Copied from "U.S. Naval Administration in World War II, Bureau of Ordnance: Naval Torpedo Station, Newport, R.I., Volume VII", held by the Navy Department Library, 1978. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph # NH 88458. Photo added 06 March 06.
View the L-8 (SS-48)
DANFS history entry located on the Haze Gray & Underway Web Site.
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