She was launched on 25 November 1917, sponsored by Mrs. Carroll Q. Wright, the daughter of United States Army Major John Leslie Shepard and wife of O-6′s prospective commanding officer.

The United States had entered World War I by the time O-6 was commissioned, and she operated from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on coastal patrol along the United States East Coast, hunting Imperial German Navy U-boats from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, to Key West, Florida.

She flashed recognition signals by blinker light and members of her crew waved a United States flag on her deck.

One of the convoy's escorts, the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Paul Jones, had meanwhile reversed course and approached Jason, which signaled that she had a submarine in sight.

In his report of the affair to United States Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, O-6′s submarine division commander wrote, "It is believed that recognition should be made of the exceedingly efficient gunnery work of the merchant vessel in question, in that she got on so quickly, and held a difficult target under the circumstances of possible enemy attack."

After World War I, O-6 operated as a training ship from Naval Submarine Base New London at Groton, Connecticut.

Reclassified as a second-line submarine on 25 July 1924 while stationed at Coco Solo in the Panama Canal Zone, she reverted to first-line status on 6 June 1928 and continued to operate from New London until February 1929, when she proceeded to Philadelphia.

As U.S. involvement in World War II approached, the U.s. NAvy began to recommission old submarines for use as training ships.

She was struck from the Naval Vessel Register the same day, and was sold to John J. Duane Company of Quincy, Massachusetts, on 4 September 1946.