USS R-19 (SS-96)

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Career
Ordered:
Laid down:	23 June 1917
Launched:	28 January 1918
Commissioned:	7 October 1918
Fate:	transfered under Lend-Lease
Stricken:	9 March 1942
General Characteristics
Displacement:	569 tons surfaced, 680 tons submerged
Length:	186 feet 2 inches
Beam:	18 feet
Draft:	14 feet 6 inches
Propulsion:	880 hp diesel engines surfaced, 934 hp electric motors submerged
Speed:	13.5 knots surfaced, 10.5 knots submerged
Range:	3700 miles at 10 knots surfaced; 100 miles at 10 knots submerged
Depth:	200 feet
Complement:	two officers and 27 enlisted men
Armament:	one three-inch/50-caliber gun, four 21-inch bow torpedo tubes, eight torpedoes

USS R-19 (SS-96) was an R-class submarine of the United States Navy. Her keel was laid down by the Union Iron Works of San Francisco, California on 23 June 1917. She was launched on 28 January 1918 sponsored by Mrs. Robert L. Irvine, and commissioned on 7 October 1918 with Lieutenant Commander William F. Callaway in command.

Following commissioning, which occurred one month before the Armistice ending World War I took effect, R-19 remained on the West Coast of the United States for nine months at San Pedro, California, until March 1919 then at San Francisco, California, undergoing overhaul, until June 1919. On 17 June 1919, R-19 got underway from the United States and commenced a transit to the Territory of Hawaii. Eight days later the submarine arrived at Pearl Harbor and commenced almost twelve years of training submarine crews and testing equipment.

During July of 1920, the hull classification symbol of R-19 was changed from "Submarine Number 96" to "SS-96."

On 12 December 1930, R-19 departed Pearl Harbor and commenced a transit to the Philadelphia Navy Yard at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. En route, the submarine called at San Diego, California; moved south to the Panama Canal Zone; negotiated the Canal; then moved north through the Caribbean Sea and the coastal waters of the east coast of the United States; and, finally, on up Delaware Bay and Delaware River to Philadelphia.

On 15 May 1931, R-19 was decommissioned at the Philadelphia Navy Yard and placed in the reserve fleet at that yard where she remained berthed at League Island for the next nine years.

R-19 recommissioned on 6 January 1941, then transited to the United States Naval Submarine Base at Groton, Connecticut, where she reconditioned. During May of 1941, R-19 headed south. During the remainder of the spring, summer, and into the fall, the R-boat patrolled and conducted training exercises in the Virgin Islands and off the Panama Canal Zone. During October of 1941, R-19 returned to Groton and continued her role as a training submarine.

On 9 March 1942, R-19 was decommissioned and transferred to the United Kingdom, under the terms of Lend-Lease. Commissioned into the Royal Navy, the former R-19 was renamed HMS P.514.

P.514 was rammed by HMCS Georgian, a unit of the Canadian Navy, in the Western Atlantic Ocean on 21 June 1942 and was lost with all hands.

References

This article includes information collected from the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.