First of Her Breed
As technological change transformed submarines from novelty to weapon of war, it naturally followed that more sophisticated "mother ships" would be required to service them. In lieu of ships built for the purpose, the Navy often used conversions until the former could join the Fleet. Recognizing this need, Congress authorized "Submarine Tender No.1," on 4 March 1911.
Bidding opened for the construction of the vessel, originally named the Niagara, on 30 April 1912, and the contract was awarded on 19 June to the only business that bid, the New England Ship and Engine Company. While the Groton, Connecticut, firm would design the ship and build her engines, the Fore River Shipbuilding Corporation in Quincy, Massachusetts, would construct the vessel, for less than $500,000.
The ship's name was changed to the Fulton, in honor of inventor Robert Fulton, on 10 February 1913, and her keel was laid on 2 October. Christened by Mrs. Arthur T. Sutcliffe, Robert Fulton's great-granddaughter, she slid down the ways on 6 June 1914. Although the approval of plans, strikes at the builder's yard, a fire in the shipyard foundry, and the "non-receipt of [the] crankshaft for the engine" delayed her construction, the Fulton was delivered to the Navy on 2 December 1914 at the Boston Navy Yard. Five days later, she was commissioned, Lieutenant James D. Willson in command. Tragically, a 19 January 1915 fuel-oil explosion while fitting out wrecked a boiler, injuring five men, one fatally.
Once in service, the Fulton tended submarines along the eastern seaboard from Block Island, Provincetown, Massachusetts, to as far south as Colon, Canal Zone. After assignment to Coco Solo, Canal Zone, on 4 April 1923, she received a new mission on 14 July: surveying Almirante Bay on the north coast of Panama for the Hydrographic Office to correct aids to navigation. She operated in the waters off Panama into the early summer of 1925, ultimately departing Coco Solo on 1 July 1925.
Decommissioned at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 5 October 1925 as the increasing size and complexity of submarines mandated larger tenders, the Fulton remained inactive until recommissioned on 2 September 1930, with Commander Oscar Smith in command. The ship sailed for the New York Navy Yard five days later, where she underwent repairs into the winter, during which time she was reclassified from a submarine tender (AS-1) to a gunboat (PG-49). Sailing for Philadelphia five days before that Christmas, she underwent an inspection there to determine her suitability for use as a survey vessel.
The Fulton performed hydrographic work in the Canal Zone region between March and October 1931. After a brief detachment to the Philadelphia Navy Yard, she returned to Panama in March 1932, where she conducted further surveys of the Gulf of Panama and the Gulf of Nicoya. By August, she had been fitted out for China service at Balboa. She began her long trek westward with a stop at San Diego to receive new crewmen on 13 August. In keeping with her new duties along the south China coast, the Fulton had been assigned a Marine detachment. Drawn from a draft of recruits from the 16th Recruit Platoon and some ex-instructors and organized on 30 July, the seagoing Leathernecks embarked on 17 August. Fully manned and outfitted as a gunboat showing the Stars and Stripes in the Far East, the Fulton sailed for Hawaiian waters a week later.
Proceeding by way of Pearl Harbor and Apra Harbor, Guam, the gunboat reached Manila on 4 October and, after repairs at Cavite, stood out of Manila Bay for Hong Kong on the 31st. She then operated between that port and Canton on patrols punctuated with gunnery drills and broken up by overhaul at Cavite and drydocking at Olongapo, a regimen she maintained into the fall of the next year.
The Fulton reported to the 16th Naval District in the Philippines for temporary duty on 20 October 1933. With her commanding officer in charge of the expedition and two civil Engineering Corps and one Construction Corps officer assigned as assistants, the gunboat began her work on Halloween. The Fulton's men surveyed potential Fleet bases in seven locations around Dumanquilas Bay and two in Port Sibulan. By 28 November she was back in Cavite and in mid-December at Foochow to resume duty with the South China Patrol. Operating between Pagoda Anchorage (Foochow), Hong Kong, and Canton, she looked out for Americans residing in China, maintaining that routine of patrols and drills into 1934.
On the afternoon of 14 March, the Fulton, then under the command of Commander Harry D. McHenry, stood out of Hong Kong, bound for Foochow. At 1835 flames and smoke emanating from her funnel prompted the officer of the deck and the quartermaster to sound the fire alarm from the bridge; a blaze had broken out in the engine room. An explosion in the main engine's crankcase had sparked the conflagration, which drove the black gang from its station. The spreading flames defied the efforts of the ship's Sailors and Marines, who were formed into bucket brigades or armed with fire extinguishers.
Although the river gunboat Mindanao (PR-8), in drydock at Hong Kong, picked up the alarm and passed the word to the gunboat Tulsa (PG-22), help materialized from closer at hand under the White Ensign and the Red Duster. While the Butterfield and Swire Line's Tsinan refused to hazard herself by getting too close, she did embark a number of the crew, including the sick and injured. It remained to the destroyer HMS Wishart to come nearer and, according to the Fulton's Lieutenant Walter S. Ginn, in a "fine display of seamanship and courage" on her part, placed her bow alongside the Fulton's, the latter's sailors clambering or leaping across as the occasion demanded. "The sight of the ship blazing sky-high," Ginn reflected later, "was a picture to be seen only in the movies. . . . We were very lucky to have such a complete disaster to the ship without losing a life."
HMS Whiteshed came out from Hong Kong and stood by the burnt-out Fulton, managed to get the fire under control, and transported the American crew to Hong Kong. A British tug towed the ship to Junk Bay ten days later. After repairs to make her seaworthy, the Fulton was towed to Cavite by the oiler Pecos (AO-6). She was decommissioned on 12 May 1934 and because of the extensive nature of her damage ordered "disposed of, by sale" on 8 May 1935. She was stricken from the Navy List on 18 May, and sold to Lavoniera Filipino, Cavite, on 6 June 1935, for $2,550.50.
Although the Fulton never fired a shot in anger, she performed valuable service tending the U.S. Navy's burgeoning submarine force in a significant period of transition. The final battle her officers, men, and Marines fought proved to be against an enemy universally dreaded by all seafarers—fire at sea—and she ended her days in obscurity far from the land of her birth. The Navy perpetuated the name Fulton in another submarine tender—AS-11—that, like her smaller ancestor, performed those unheralded and prosaic service tasks without which no modern submarine force, or any modern fleet for that matter, can function.