David Bushnell’s submersible, used in an attempted attack on a British ship in 1776, was called Turtle.
Bushnell built Turtle in 1775 as a one-person, hand-powered vessel designed to attach an explosive charge beneath an enemy ship. Sergeant Ezra Lee piloted it toward HMS Eagle in New York Harbor on September 7, 1776.
Lee was unable to fasten the explosive to the ship’s hull, so the attack failed. Nevertheless, Turtle is widely described as the first submarine with a documented record of use in combat. Its final fate is unknown after the British sank the transport vessel carrying it later in 1776.
Turtle was not a conventional submarine by modern standards. It was a small submersible propelled by hand-operated mechanisms and supplied with only limited air. Later replicas can be seen in several museums, but none is the original vessel.