In his words: "I may have some recently scanned photos from the National Archives you might be interested in. One of my finds was a box of images of the USS Dolphin V-7, SS-169 which appear to be the builders album of photos which the 5th floor staff were kind enough to disassemble so I could make scans, the total number of scans I have come to 76 both interior and exterior."

The results of those scans are presented here as a PigBoats.COM exclusive. The photos, along with many close ups showing interesting portions of the larger photos, make up this extensive tour of the USS Dolphin SS-169, popularly known to the public at the time as "Submarine D1"!

Several months of intensive research has gone into developing the captions and background information for these pages. Submarine technology has changed tremendously between the Dolphin's era and the time Dave and Ric were in the Submarine Navy in the 60's, 70's and 80's. With all of the Dolphin's crew and the men who designed and built her long gone much of her technology has been "forgotten" and it took the accumulated experience of the two of us, assisted by several other submarine veterans to decipher and interpret the machinery and features in the photos. With all of that, many features remain open to further research, and in some cases we were forced to speculate. If anyone can correct or update any of the information presented here we would welcome your assistance and you will be given full credit for your contributions.

Dolphin was a transitional submarine. The Navy, in its attempt to create a long range submarine to operate with the fleet, was pushing the boundaries of the technology of the day. The previous classes up through the S-class were harbor defense and coastal patrol designs and did not have the speed, range, or reliability needed to cruise with the Battle Fleet and operate as the eyes of the Navy. The first attempt was the short lived "M-1", a one boat class followed by the three T-class, these ultimately proved to be failures because the knowledge base and the manufacturing state of the art were not sufficient to provide those robust qualities, and with diesel engine technology still in its' infancy they did not have the necessary power and speed.

The follow-on V-class (of which Dolphin was a member) was an attempt to correct these issues. The first six boats were giants (compared to earlier classes) and while they had the requisite range they still suffered from many of the same problems that plagued the M and T-class.

Dolphin (originally named V-7, her name was changed before she was launched) was an attempt to reign in this trend in gigantism. With rearranged interiors, better handling, and better engines the designers had unintentionally hit upon the nearly optimum combination of qualities that would lead nearly 10 years later to the war winning Gato, Balao, and Tench class boats.

The intention to build more of the Dolphin version of the V-class was never carried out because limitations imposed by the London Treaty of 1930 made her still too large. The result was the construction of the last two of the authorized "V" class submarines, the smaller, lighter Cachalot SS-170 and Cuttlefish SS-171 at 1200 tons, versus the Dolphin at 1700 tons.

We hope that further clarification on the pictures and captions will come in the next few months as a research group is traveling to the National Archives this fall. In the mean time captions may change as discoveries and better information is found. The hope for this trip is the possible discovery of more photos and blueprints/line drawings that will help us refine the information found here.

We are proud to present these wonderful, high quality photos. Most of these photos have never been published before, hidden away from the public in a musty old section of the Archives. Many have not seen the light of day since they were taken in 1932 and 1933. That was 85 years ago! We hope that you enjoy them.