USS Cod

Over the holiday weekend just passed, Beth and I were able to take Alex up to see the USS Cod. This is something I’ve been wanting to do since I first read a book about the submarine service back in 1982 when I was ten years old, so I was pretty excited about the whole visit.

The first thing they tell you when you buy the tickets is “be careful”. The Cod is the only submarine currently on display that has not been modified from her wartime configuration. That means you walk through the same doors, up and down the same ladders, and through the same tight corridors that the sailors did when she went to war against Japan 60 years ago. Climbing down into the forward torpedo room you are struck by how tight everything seems - there is not all that much room to move around in, which can be a bit disconcerting because the forward torpedo room is one of the largest compartments on the sub.

The museum - which is what the Cod has become - is laid out very well. The tour starts at the forward torpedo room and continues through the aft torpedo room, and is self guided. Each compartment has a button which, when pressed, starts an audio recording which explains the function of the compartment you are in and notes some of the highlights. In a nice touch, the audio is presented in the words of one of the crewman from the Cod’s patrols. Pictures are located throughout the boat which show historic views of the compartments you are in.

This trip was a chance for me to actually get a first hand look at and actually touch history - after reading Pig Boats at ten, I followed up by reading everything I could find about submarines - books like “Das Boot”, “Torpedo Alley”, “Combat Patrol”, and “Run silent, run deep” found their way onto my bookshelf. I remember being incredibly excited when my father told me that a guy that he worked with was a former submariner - I recall bothering him for what seemed like hours when he went to a Cavaliers game with my father and I.

It was an odd feeling - in the control room, hands on the vent controls looking at the “chistmas tree” indicator lights. Standing at the diving planes and the helmsman’s station. Working the engine room annunciator back in the motor room. Everything was as I had always pictured it from all the reading, yet it was subtly different as well. More claustrophobic than I had envisioned, and that was - for the most part - only with Beth and Alex in the compartments with me. Even at dockside on Lake Erie, the boat had a noticeable sea motion - I can only imagine what it was like to be on the surface during a storm in the South Pacific.

Alex did get a bit bored near the end of the tour - part of it was the fact that he is only eight years old, and part of it was the fact that we were going to the airshow after we left. But the whining and complaining was fairly low-key, and he did tell me that he really liked the submarine later that night. Surprisingly, Beth told me she enjoyed the visit as well - which was a welcome surprise, as I always feel a little guilty dragging her along to things like this.

For a more in-depth discussion of the Cod (or of the submarine force), I would suggest starting with the Cod’s homepage at http://www.usscod.org/ - there are a number of links off their site which are worth pursuing. The books mentioned above are all very good as well, although my personal favorite - Pig Boats - has been out of print for a number of years. However, you may be able to locate it in your local library or through Amazon/Harvest. All pictures in this post are taken from the Cod’s homepage.