Final Patrol (8 page)

During the fire, two other men bravely went out onto the sub's deck, despite the rolling, pitching sea, and made their way back to open the torpedo room's deck hatch. That would allow some of the smoke to vent to the outside and maybe make the firefighting in the compartment a bit easier. But as they made their way along the slick, teetering deck, the two were hit by a wave and knocked overboard.

One of the sailors, Quartermaster Lawrence Foley, wore a life vest. The other man had volunteered and climbed up the ladder without putting one on.

Meanwhile, below, the crew members in the torpedo room managed to wrestle the good torpedo from its tube and load the burning one in its place. As soon as the tube was flooded, the flames were snuffed out. There was minimal damage. The torpedo could even be repaired and used.

With the crisis in the torpedo room under control, Captain Adkins launched a search for the lost sailors. It took eight hours but they were finally miraculously located, bobbing helplessly in the frothy sea. For the entire time they were overboard, Foley had kept his shipmate's head above water as they fought the towering waves and prayed that their boat would come to rescue them.

 

 

 

SS-224 would have
another footnote in the history pages of World War II. She would be a key part of the only international submarine-to-submarine rescue ever conducted. On her seventh and final war patrol, on July 8, 1945, the
Cod
came to the aid of the Dutch submarine
O-19
. She found herself grounded on a shelf of coral near Ladd Reef in the South China Sea. Without a doubt she was a sitting duck for any enemy plane or ship that might pass by, but it appeared there was no way for them to pull her off the reef so she could get back underwater.

Despite the danger of being spotted themselves, the
Cod
and her crew helped the fifty-six Dutch submariners to safety in a discouragingly slow operation. Crew members manned the deck guns, watching for enemy ships or planes.

Then, with every sailor off the doomed Dutch vessel, they used scuttling charges, torpedoes, and their five-inch deck gun to destroy
O-19
so that she wouldn't fall into the hands of the Japanese.

Of course, that meant that the American submarine would be the cramped home to over 150 men for the three days it took to make the run to Subic Bay in the recently liberated Philippines. Still, since the rescue was successful, it was a good trip.

There was one more close call for some members of the
Cod
's crew. When she resumed her seventh patrol after the
O-19
rescue, she was working off the coast of Vietnam, inspecting junks, sampans, and barges. Those little boats were notorious for pretending to be fishing boats while they were actually carrying supplies to the enemy. During one of the operations, a five-man boarding party left the submarine to inspect one of the tiny vessels.

Without warning, a Japanese aircraft suddenly appeared and began strafing the
Cod
. Their skipper at the time, Lieutenant Commander Edwin M. Westbrook, reluctantly but quickly ordered the submarine to dive. Unfortunately, there was no time to recover the crew members who had boarded the junk. They were left behind in order to try to save the submarine and the rest of the crew.

It would be several hours before the coast was clear for the
Cod
to surface again, and when she did, the sea was filled with junks and sampans, an armada stretching from horizon to horizon. Several other U.S. submarines joined the search, but it did not look hopeful.

But two days later, the USS
Blenny
(SS-324) found and rescued the missing crewmen. It was an especially happy reunion.

One of the men aboard the
Cod
for her seventh patrol was Norman Jensen, a U.S. Navy photographer. He shot color movie footage of both the
O-19
rescue and the return of the lost boarding party. That film was discovered in the National Archives in Washington, D.C., in 1992. The images have been used in several documentary television programs since.

When the
Cod
returned to Perth, Australia, at the end of that patrol, the crew was invited to a “thank you” party by crew members from the
O-19
. And, like submariners everywhere, they couldn't turn down an invitation to a party. It was at the height of the celebration of the Dutch crew's remarkable rescue when a very interesting message arrived. It, too, was something that was well worth celebrating.

The Japanese had agreed to surrender.

That news, of course, kicked the party into another gear.

To this day, the
Cod
's conning tower fairwater and the official battle flag carry the image of a cocktail glass and the designation “
O-19
” in commemoration of the rescue and the party that celebrated that event—as well as the end of the war.

In all, she sailed almost ninety thousand miles while on patrol and consumed over a million gallons of diesel fuel. She fired 122 torpedoes and recorded thirty-nine hits. The boat earned seven battle stars and was officially credited with almost thirty thousand tons of enemy shipping destroyed.

The
Cod
and her crew were prime examples of the silent service's contribution to the hard-won victory in World War II.

 

 

 

Like many of her sisters,
the
Cod
would have a productive if more sedate life after World War II. She was reactivated in 1951 and took part in Cold War NATO exercises. She later was converted for dockside use as a training vessel. That meant her screws were removed, the bunks were taken out of the after battery to make room for classrooms, and the ballast tanks were sealed to make sure she did not accidentally submerge with a boatload of trainees aboard. Of course, the storage battery cells came out, too.

In 1959, the sub was towed from the Philadelphia Navy Yard, where she then rested and was prepared for her next job. She journeyed up the Atlantic Coast and down the St. Lawrence Seaway to Cleveland, Ohio. There she served as a training boat for the Naval Reserve Center until 1971. By that time, the navy had virtually eliminated all nonnuclear vessels from its fleet.

The
Cod
had outlived her usefulness and was stricken from the register of navy ships. She was likely headed for the junk heap like so many of her sister World War II diesel boats.

A group in Cleveland, however, had another thought. They noted that since coming to town the submarine had always been popular with local schoolchildren. Even as she was being used as a training boat, the kids frequently visited her on school field trips. They also noted that the sub's big diesel engines were built by General Motors' Cleveland diesel plant, a facility located on the city's west side.

The old girl had practically been born a Clevelander! It made perfect sense that she was destined to remain there.

The group formed a corporation called the Cleveland Coordinating Committee to Save
Cod
with the intent of preserving her as a memorial. The plan was to leave her parked on the city's lakefront, accessible to anyone who wanted to see what a real hero of World War II looked like. Veterans' groups agreed and were instrumental in getting her adopted by Clevelanders.

The navy agreed to give the group guardianship of the submarine in January of 1976 under the usual conditions: she must be maintained, made safe for visitors and shipping, and used only to allow the public to appreciate the historic role of the submarine in naval history. The CCC readily agreed.

The
Cod
was officially opened to the public in May 1976 and quickly became a star, major tourist attraction. In 1986 she was designated a National Historic Landmark by the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Today, the
Cod
is considered by many submarine purists to be one of the finest restored submarines on display around the country. Not only does she carry the lowest hull number of any surviving World War II submarine, but she is probably the least-modified. For that reason, visitors must use the same actual vertical hatches and ladders that the crew used during World War II and after. There are no stairways or doors to make it easier for people who come calling, nor has her hull been cut away to give better access, as has been the case with other museum boats. Recently, when the cutaway version of a real torpedo was located and placed in one of the torpedo rooms, it had to be loaded just the way they were taken aboard during the war—through a loading hatch in the deck and down a chute to the torpedo room.

The committee is not content to allow the boat to simply sit there, either. They continue to add to what they have there already. For example, two General Motors diesel engines have recently been obtained, and they will be used for parts to rebuild the
Cod
's original engines to running condition. Another recent project has also restored the boat's torpedo data computer to its wartime condition.

Also on display near the submarine are a Mark 14 torpedo, like the ones used at the beginning of World War II; a five-bladed, one-ton submarine propeller; and a type 8A submarine search periscope. Visitors are able to get a sub skipper's view of Lake Erie through the scope.

As with several of the other museum boats, the caretakers of the USS
Cod
do not receive any government money. They rely on admissions, donations, gift shop sales, and volunteers to keep the boat in shape and open to the public. And they also appreciate volunteers, including submarine veteran groups, who help maintain the vessel so others can see her the way she was when she was in her finest fighting form, more than sixty years ago.

Courtesy of the U.S. Navy

 

Launched:
May 12, 1941

Named for:
a species of fish known for making a distinct drumming noise, primarily the North Atlantic sea bass

Where:
Portsmouth Navy Yard, New Hampshire

Sponsor:
Mrs. Thomas Holcomb, wife of the commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps

Commissioned:
November 1, 1941, just over a month before the attack on Pearl Harbor

 

Claim to fame:
The first
Gato
-class submarine built prior to World War II, she completed thirteen war patrols, more than the average for her sister submarines.

S
he was a mighty warrior, a new breed of warship, fast, strong, well armed, and perfectly suited for the long-range war patrols she would be called upon to perform in the Pacific. She and the first members of her crew to show up in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, did not necessarily know there would be a war, even though there were already strong suspicions that the United States' entry into the conflict with the Axis powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan—was inevitable. The
Drum
was officially commissioned in November 1941, a mere thirty-seven days before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The USS
Drum
(SS-228) was the first of the
Gato
-class submarines to slide down the skids at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, but she and her sisters, along with the next-generation
Balao
subs that were already on the drawing boards at that time, would prove to make a major difference in the defeat of the Japanese in World War II.

The
Drum
also had something of an all-star commissioning crew. Her new skipper was Robert H. Rice, the son-in-law of Russell Wilson, who was at that time the chief of staff for the Chief of Naval Operations—the big boss. Another one of her officers was Maurice Rindskopf, a young lieutenant just out of Annapolis on the accelerated program. He would go on to serve on eleven war patrols aboard the vessel and become the
Drum
's commanding officer on her tenth and eleventh war patrols, for which he would receive the Navy Cross and the Silver and Bronze Stars. Rindskopf eventually made rear admiral and became Director of Naval Intelligence.

There was also a young officer named Manning Kimmel aboard the
Drum
during her sea trials and first three war patrols. He would eventually become one of her more tragic figures. Kimmel was born in 1913 to Lieutenant and Mrs. Husband Kimmel. His father was a hard-charging young naval officer, the son of an army major, with an obviously bright military future before him. Even as the senior Kimmel moved up through naval ranks, young Manning decided to follow in his father's footsteps and opted to attend the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, graduating in June 1935. After a stint aboard the battleship
Mississippi
(BB-41), he entered submarine school in Groton, Connecticut, and became an officer aboard the USS
S-38
(SS-143) before heading to Portsmouth to help put the
Drum
into commission.