The submarine torpedo boat USS A-7 was originally laid down as USS Shark (Submarine Torpedo Boat Number 8) on 11 January 1901 at Elizabethport, New Jersey, by the Crescent Shipyard of Lewis Nixon, a subcontractor for the John P. Holland Torpedo Boat Company of New York. The submarine was christened by Mrs. Walter Stevens Turpin, the wife of Lieutenant Commander Walter S. Turpin, an officer on duty at the Crescent Shipyard, and launched on 19 October 1901. Built with a hull of manganese bronze, USS Shark was equipped and outfitted at the Holland yard at New Suffolk, New York, and commissioned there on 19 September 1903, with Lieutenant Charles P. Nelson in command.

When commissioned, Submarine Torpedo Boat Number 8 displaced 107 tons; was 63'10" in length; had a beam of 11'11"; drew 10'7" of water when on the surface in diving trim; could make 8 knots on the surface and 7 knots submerged; was manned by 7 officers and men; and was armed with one 18-inch torpedo tube. USS Shark was the last unit of the Plunger class contracted to be built for the United States Navy.

Over the next three and a half years, USS Shark operated locally at the Naval Torpedo Station at Newport, Rhode Island, conducting firing tests with torpedoes, and participating in early research and development in the field of undersea warfare. Assigned to the First Submarine Flotilla in March of 1907, USS Shark was stationed at the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, in the spring of 1907.

Taken to the New York Navy Yard in April of 1908, the submarine torpedo boat was decommissioned there on the 21st of that month.

Loaded on board collier USS Caesar, USS Shark and her sistership, USS Porpoise (Submarine Torpedo Boat Number 7), comprised the auxiliary's deck cargo as she proceeded, via Suez, for the Philippine Islands.

USS Shark was launched soon after her arrival at Cavite in July and was recommissioned on 14 August 1908.

Over the next several years, the submarine torpedo boat operated out of Cavite, interspersing training with periodic upkeep and repair work. On 17 November 1911, USS Shark was renamed USS A-7.

During World War I, USS A-7 and her sisterships, based at Cavite, carried out patrols at the entrance to Manila Bay. In the early spring of 1917, Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Arnold Marcus assumed command of USS A-7. On 24 July 1917, shortly after the submarine torpedo boat's engine had been overhauled, gasoline fumes ignited and caused an explosion and fire while in the course of a patrol in Manila Bay.

After Marcus and his men had battled the blaze, he ordered the crew topside and into the boats that had been summoned alongside. The last man to emerge from the interior of the crippled submersible, Marcus sent up distress signals to the nearby monitor USS Monadnock, and then took the helm himself in an attempt to beach the ship. He refused medical treatment until all his men had been attended to (six later died) and had to be ordered to leave his post. The gallant

Marcus died the next day, 25 July 1917, of the effects of the explosion and fire that had ravaged his command. The Navy recognized this young officer's selfless heroism in naming a ship, USS Marcus (Destroyer Number 321), in his honor.

Placed in ordinary at Cavite on 1 April 1918, USS A-7 was subsequently decommissioned on 12 December 1919. Given the alphanumeric hull number SS-8 on 17 July 1920, USS A-7, initially advertised for sale in the 16th Naval District, was later authorized for use as a target in 1921. She was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 16 January 1922.