K-7 (Submarine No. 38)
1914-1930
(Submarine No. 38: displacement 392 (surfaced), 521 (submerged); length 153'7"; beam 16'8"; draft 13'1" (mean); speed 14.0 knots (surfaced), 10.5 knots (submerged); complement 28; designed depth 200'0"; armament 4 18-inch torpedo tubes; class K-3)
K-7 (Submarine No. 38) was laid down on 10 May 1912 at San Francisco, Calif., by the Union Iron Works; launched on 20 June 1914, under a subcontract from the Electric Boat Co., Groton, Conn.; sponsored by Mrs. Katie-Bel McGregor, daughter of the President of Union Iron Works; and commissioned at Mare Island on 1 December 1914, Lt. Joseph V. Ogan in command.
As a unit of the Pacific Torpedo Flotilla, K-7 sailed for San Diego on 26 December 1914, the day after Christmas, arriving on the 28th to commence shakedown and training along the California coast. She returned to San Francisco on 4 June 1915, then departed on 3 October for experimental duty in the Hawaiian Islands. Arriving at Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, on 14 October, she conducted torpedo and diving tests and participated in operations developing the tactics of submarine warfare. K-7 departed Pearl Harbor on 31 October 1917, and sailed via the West Coast and the Panama Canal for antisubmarine patrol duty in the Gulf of Mexico.
Arriving at Key West, Fla., on 8 January 1918, K-7 patrolled the shipping lanes of the Gulf of Mexico from the Florida Keys to Galveston Bay. She returned to Key West from Galveston, Texas, on 27 November and resumed training and development operations until departing for the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 14 April 1919. She received an overhaul from 21 April to 10 November, then resumed operations out of Key West.
Following an additional overhaul during the latter half of 1921, K-7 resumed her training and development operations at the U. S. Naval Academy on 19 January 1921. For more than two years she ranged the eastern seaboard from Hampton Roads, Va., to Provincetown, Mass., training submariners, conducting diving experiments, and practicing underwater warfare tactics. During April and May 1921 she visited the service academies at Annapolis and West Point. After conducting almost seven months of submarine instruction at New London, Conn., she arrived at Hampton Roads on 7 September 1922, for submarine flotilla operations in Chesapeake Bay. Subsequently, K-7 was decommissioned at Hampton Roads on 12 February 1923. She was towed to Philadelphia on 23 August 1924; struck from the Navy List 18 December 1930; and sold for scrap 3 June 1931.
