S-24′s keel was laid down on 1 November 1918 by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation's Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts.

Operating from New London, Connecticut, in 1923 and 1924, S-24 served at Saint Thomas, United States Virgin Islands, in February 1924.

In the Royal Navy, she was commissioned as HMS P555 in October 1942 and was assigned to the 7th Submarine Flotilla, a flotilla based at Holy Loch, Scotland, used for training new submarine officers and crews and for training surface warships in anti-submarine warfare.

Among the officers who commanded her was Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) Lieutenant Edward Preston Young, making P555 the first Royal Navy submarine to be commanded by a British RNVR officer.

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.