She was renamed H-2 on 17 November 1911, launched on 4 June 1913 sponsored by Mrs. William Ranney Sands, and commissioned on 1 December 1913, Lieutenant, junior grade Howard H. J. Benson in command.

Transferred to the Atlantic Fleet as of 9 November 1917, she cruised in the Caribbean Sea for most of that winter, also conducting special submarine detection tests with aircraft and patrol vessels from Key West, Florida.

After having new engines installed at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the spring of 1918, she resumed patrols in the Caribbean until the end of the war, when she returned to the sub base at New London, Connecticut.

When H-1 went aground off Santa Margarita Island on 12 March, H-2 stood by and sent rescue and search parties for survivors, helping to save all but four of her sister ship's crew.

Drills and exercises with the Pacific Fleet and Submarine Division 7 (SubDiv 7) out of San Pedro were interrupted by an extensive Mare Island Naval Shipyard overhaul in the winter of 1921, after which H-2 returned to the same schedule.