dp. 358 tons (surf.), 467 tons (subm.); l. 150'; b. 16'; s. 14k (surf.), 10.5k (subm.); td. 200'; a. 4-18" tt. fwd.; cpl. 2 officers - 23 enlisted men; cl. "H"

After shakedown, USS H-3 (SS-30) was attached to the United States Pacific Fleet and began operations along the West Coast of the United States from lower California to Washington State exercising frequently with USS H-1 (SS-28) and USS H-2 (SS-29). While engaged in operations off the northern California coast, H-3 ran hard aground on Samoa Beach at Eureka in heavy fog on the morning of 16 December 1916. Immediate efforts to get her free failed, so the United States Coast Guard removed H-3's crew to safety by means of breeches buoy transfers. Subsequent attempts to pull the submarine from her bed of sand and out through the dangerous surf failed.

The Navy realized that a great effort would be needed to refloat H-3. Accordingly, the decision was made to use cruiser USS Milwaukee (C-21), assisted by a tug and a monitor, to pull stranded H-3 from the beach back into deep water.

Milwaukee was still in the Mare Island Yard for conversion to a tender to the Pacific Coast Torpedo Flotilla on 16 December 1916. It was reasoned that the powerful 24,000 horsepower engines of Milwaukee would be more than ample to free the submarine although the cruiser had not completed her conversion. Milwaukee was ordered to sail on 6 January 1917 and was soon anchored to seaward of the grounded submarine.

Milwaukee prepared to pull the submarine out of the sand. A boat loaned by the Coast Guard started for shore with a line. As the boat approached the first line of breakers a gigantic roller swept in and lifted Milwaukee. As she rose to the top of the crest, her propellers broke the surface and her bilge keels were visible for half her length. The sailors pulled but the Coast Guard boat pitch-poled, spewing out men and oars. Watchers on the shore rescued the crew and recovered the boat.

The line brought in by the capsized boat was used to haul successively heavier lines to Milwaukee. To take the seaward end of wire hawsers, the cruiser moved in close to shore. She was captive between an anchor that held her bow seaward, and the submarine stuck in the sand. She was, in effect, moored bow and stern, the latter not less than four of her own length from the breaking surf. A thick bank of fog hung offshore.

At high tide on 13 January 1917, the supreme effort would be made. This came in the early morning darkness. Once her anchor was aweigh, Milwaukee would swing at the end of some 3,000 feet of wire attached to H-3. Should the cruiser swing southward, she would touch bottom in the shallows and herself become a victim of the roaring surf and tricky currents. But tug Iroquois would have a line on the starboard bow, pulling north to keep Milwaukee's head up and keep her steaming straight out to sea. Monitor Cheyenne would take a line from the cruiser's stern, adding her horsepower in a pull seaward that would aid Iroquois in counteracting any southerly set of the current.

Propellers churned in the morning darkness of 13 January 1917. Milwaukee was underway in a fog. A slight shudder ran through the ship as she swung to port -- the dangerous shallows to the south. Iroquois churned desperately to hold the cruiser's head up against the current, then was forced to cast off as she was nearly in the surf herself. Milwaukee continued to swing and soon felt the long, lazy swell lifting her and then dropping her along the sandy bottom. The captain radioed other ships to keep clear for Milwaukee was in the breakers beyond help. Her message was intercepted by the nearby Table Bluff Radio Station and was passed on to the Samoa Lifesaving Station.

The breakers pounding Milwaukee's sides made the lowering of boats impossible. Soon the sharp crack of a Lyle cannon told her that a lifesaving crew was in action. After several attempts, a projectile from the cannon landed on her tilting deck, attached to a line that was quickly hauled in. But the breeches buoy did not work properly and catapulted the first sailor into the surf. A second man suffered the same fate. Finally the line on board Milwaukee was shifted to her upper top and the ship steadied more all the time as she drove inshore and became bedded in the sand. As the cruiser came about 300 yards offshore, there was a rush by the populace of Eureka to man rescue boats. The survivors were quartered in the dormitories of the Hammond Lumber Company and the clubhouse of the Sequoia Boating and Yachting Club. Some men accepted invitations to spend the night in nearby homes. The Navy had lost a fine ship. She could not be re-floated and was decommissioned on 6 March 1917. A storm broke her hulk in half during November of 1918. Her name was struck from the Navy List on 23 June 1919. The broken hulk of Milwaukee was sold to salvors for scrapping on 5 August 1919.

The most ironic fact is that H-3 later was re-floated by a commercial salvage company and returned to naval service. The commercial salvage company's job was especially complicated because H-3 lay high up on a sandy beach, surrounded by quicksand. At low tide, she was 75 feet from the water, but at high tide, the ocean reached almost 250 feet beyond her. After a month of hard work, H-3 was finally salvaged by being placed on giant log rollers and taken overland to the sea.

Having decommissioned on 4 February 1917 while salvage work was still going on, H-3 was re-launched on 20 April 1917 at Humboldt Bay. She then returned to San Pedro, where she served as flagship of SubDiv7 participating in exercises and operations along the West Coast until 1922.

H-3, along with the entire division, departed San Pedro on 25 July 1922, and transited to Hampton Roads, VA, arriving on 14 September 1922.

H-3 decommissioned in the Hampton Roads area on 23 October 1922. She was struck from the Navy List on 18 December 1930 and subsequently scrapped on 14 September 1931.