USS S-5

[3] Normal procedure was to leave the main air induction valve open until the engines had a chance to come to a full stop, this operation being so timed as to occur just prior to complete submergence.

In the case of S-5, however, the chief of the boat, Gunner's Mate Percy Fox, the man responsible for operating this valve, was momentarily distracted.

They hoped to have enough time, after the water had entered, to close the watertight door before the gas could reach a dangerous level.

With additional assistance from the Panama Railway Company steamship General G. W. Goethals, a much larger hole was cut, and the entire crew was rescued.

[5] A potentially apocryphal story about a conversation between the crews aboard the submarine and Alanthus has been published,[6] but there is no support for it in the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships nor contemporary newspaper accounts.

[5][7] Once the crew was offloaded from S-5, the battleship USS Ohio secured a towline to its stern and proceeded to tow her to shallower water.

The towline, however, parted and the loose submarine bobbed, then plunged to the bottom about 15 nmi (28 km; 17 mi) off Cape May, New Jersey.

Whiting, which had just completed a summer in port at Norfolk, Virginia, and was bound for Boston, Massachusetts, to conduct hydrographic survey operations in New England, paused off Cape May in late July 2001 to search for the wreck.

[9] The portion of S-5's hull plating that General G. W. Goethals removed to permit S-5's crew to escape from the submarine is on exhibit in the National Museum of the United States Navy in the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. NOAA donated the sonar data NOAAS Whiting gathered in 2001 during her discovery of the wreck of S-5 to the Submarine Force Library and Museum in Groton, Connecticut, for archiving and display.

Side view of USS S-5
The steamship Alanthus standing by the stern of S-5 on 2 September 1920, the day after S-5 accidentally sank off the Delaware Bay
NOAAS Whiting 's first sonar image of the wreck of S-5 on the ocean bottom, made in late July 2001 when Whiting discovered the wreck's exact location for the first time
The circle of plating General G. W. Goethals cut from S-5 ' s hull to allow men to escape is on display at the Navy Museum at the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. It is approximately 2 ft (61 cm) in diameter and 3 ⁄ 4 in (1.9 cm) thick.