The famed Gato-class fleet boat USS Cod (SS/AGSS/IXSS-224), who earned seven battle stars across the same number of War Patrols against the Japanese Empire, has been a lovingly cared-for museum ship in Cleveland since 1976.
Used as a training vessel for naval reservists on the Great Lakes during the Cold War, she was never given the common GUPPY modernizations that the rest of her class survivors got, and as such is the only World War II Fleet submarine that is still intact, with no stairways and doors cut into her pressure hull for public access.
That means she is still able to float and, although her screws and propulsion plant are quiet, she can be towed in open water, as proved by a recent trip to Donjon Shipbuilding and Repair in Erie, Pennsylvania, where she was in hull maintenance drydocking.
While she has been in fresh water for most of her life, she still needed a lot of TLC, and this shot is after 40 years of marine growth has been removed.
With the torpedo shutters off
What a difference two months in dry dock makes!
She returned to her traditional Cleveland berth yesterday, aided in a 13-hour by the tug Manitou.
That’s not a view you see a lot of these days