Trapped at 180 Feet: The Incredible Escape of USS S-5's Crew in 1920

In the early hours of September 1, 1920, a single forgetful act turned a routine training exercise into a life-or-death ordeal for 38 sailors aboard the USS S-5, one of the United States Navy's most advanced submarines at the time.

During what should have been a standard crash dive, a crew member failed to close the main induction valve. Water poured into the control room. Within minutes, the S-5 was flooding rapidly off the coast of Cape May, New Jersey. Skipper Charles Cooke and executive officer Charlie Grisham barely escaped drowning themselves.

The submarine plunged 180 feet to the ocean floor, striking bottom twice. By all accounts, the crew should not have survived.

Raising the Stern

Cooke made a critical decision: blow the aft ballast tanks. The maneuver partially worked. The bow stayed pinned to the seabed, but the stern rose at a steep 60-degree angle, pushing part of the submarine above the waterline. It was a sliver of hope — but it required someone to spot it.

Inside the submarine, conditions deteriorated fast. Flooded compartments forced the crew into tight quarters. Breathing became harder with each passing hour as carbon dioxide levels climbed. Then came a new threat: seawater had reached the battery room, where it reacted with sulfuric acid to produce toxic chlorine gas.

Drilling a Way Out

Refusing to accept their fate, the crew began boring through the submarine's hull. They started with a hand-crank drill, then switched to an electric tool as the first attempts proved too slow. Exhausted men took turns in grueling shifts.

Eventually, they punched through — first creating a hole no larger than a pack of gum. Cooke peered through and spotted a passing ship, but it moved out of sight before they could signal it. Undeterred, they enlarged the opening to roughly the size of a photo frame.

They found a copper pipe to use as a makeshift pole and attached a white T-shirt to the end — the only visible fabric they could find. Through the hole, they waved their improvised flag into the Atlantic wind.

Spotted and Saved

Against the odds, the steamship Alanthus noticed something unusual protruding from the water and altered course. The captain called out, asking for the vessel's name and nationality. Cooke, never one to lose his sense of humor even underwater, replied: "To hell, by compass!"

The Alanthus radioed for help. The merchant ship SS General George W. Goethals arrived, followed by additional vessels dispatched by the Navy. Through the drilled holes, all 38 submariners climbed out — unconscious men carried by their shipmates — and were brought to safety.

The entire ordeal lasted 37 hours. Not a single life was lost.

Aftermath

The Navy attempted to salvage the S-5 for over a year, but recovery efforts repeatedly failed. On September 3, 1921, exactly one year after the rescue, the submarine was officially abandoned to the sea.

The story of the USS S-5 remains one of the most remarkable survival tales in naval history — a testament to quick thinking, relentless effort, and the kind of ingenuity that only emerges when survival is on the line.