USS Shark, a 107-ton Plunger (later A-1) class submarine built at Elizabethport, New Jersey, was commissioned in September 1903. She served between then and early 1907 at the Naval Torpedo Station at Newport, Rhode Island, and subsequently at the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. In April 1908 Shark was loaded on board the collier Caesar for transportation to Manila, where she arrived in July. Renamed A-7 in November 1911, the submarine was employed for the rest of her active career as part of the defenses of the Philippine Islands. During World War I she conducted patrols in the entrance to Manila Bay. On 24 July 1917, while so engaged, she suffered an internal gasoline explosion and fire that took the lives of her Commanding Officer, Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Arnold Marcus, and several other crewmembers. USS A-7 was decommissioned in December 1919, though she had apparently been inactive since April 1918. Given the hull number SS-8 in July 1920, she had no further commissioned service. Later used as a target, she was striken from the Navy list in January 1922.