She was launched on 10 November 1927, sponsored by Mrs. Philip Mason Sears, the daughter of Rear Admiral William D. MacDougall, and commissioned on 2 April 1928.

[2] V-4 was the first of the second generation of V-boats commissioned in the late 1920s, which remain the largest non-nuclear submarines ever built by the United States.

Her configuration, and that of the following V-5 and V-6, resulted from an evolving strategic concept that increasingly emphasized the possibility of a naval war with Japan in the far western Pacific.

The specially built engines failed to produce their design power, and some developed dangerous crankcase explosions.

For the first time in U.S. submarine construction, the Portsmouth Navy Yard utilized welding during the assembly process.

[10] The other mines were racked in three groups around this tube, two in the fore compartment, one aft,[10] with a hydraulically driven rotating cage between them.

She proved perennially underpowered, but engine replacement was postponed by war,[10] and her MAN diesels were a constant source of trouble.

Argonaut also appeared as a German World War I U-boat in the post-Code 1931 film Suicide Fleet, about three US Navy sailors on a schooner submarine decoy Q-ship and their liberty adventures pursuing a beautiful Coney Island concessionaire.

While designed as a minelayer and not an attack submarine, Argonaut made the first wartime approach on enemy naval forces; but poor maneuverability prevented reaching a suitable position for surfaced torpedo launch against the two Japanese destroyers shelling Midway.

After being held down all night, Argonaut surfaced at dawn to recharge batteries and was unsuccessfully bombed by a United States plane from Midway.

Three crewmen were sick with high fevers, but President Roosevelt's mention of Argonaut's contribution to the war effort in a radio speech encouraged Barchet to resist the temptation to abort the patrol.

Argonaut successfully rendezvoused with USS Litchfield at 06:00 20 January 1942, so the destroyer could escort her back to Pearl Harbor.

[17] On 22 January 1942, she returned to Pearl Harbor and, after a brief stop, proceeded to Mare Island Naval Shipyard for major overhaul.

It appears she was not fitted with bow external torpedo tubes, as were Narwhal and Nautilus, as photos taken after the refit do not show them.

However, by midnight of 18 August, the Japanese garrison of about 85 men was wiped out; radio stations, fuel, and other supplies and installations were destroyed, and all but 30 of the troops had been recovered.

In December, she departed Brisbane under Lieutenant Commander John R. Pierce to patrol the hazardous area between New Britain and Bougainville Island, south of Bismarck Archipelago.

[20] On 10 January, Argonaut spotted a convoy of five freighters and their escorting destroyers – Maikaze, Isokaze, and Hamakaze – returning to Rabaul from Lae.

By chance, a United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) aircraft – which was out of bombs – was flying overhead and witnessed Argonaut's attack.

Japanese reports made available at the end of the war recorded a depth charge attack followed by gunfire, at which time they "destroyed the top of the sub".

On the basis of the report given by the USAAF flier who witnessed the attack in which Argonaut sank, she was credited with damaging a Japanese destroyer on her last patrol.