USS Cod

USS Cod is a, the only vessel of the United States Navy to be named for the cod, named after the world's most important food fish of the North Atlantic and North Pacific.Her keel was laid down by the Electric Boat Company of Groton, Connecticut on 21 July 1942. The submarine's five diesel engines were built by General Motors' Cleveland Diesel plant located on the west side of Cleveland. She was launched on 21 March 1943, and commissioned on 21 June 1943 with Commander James C. Dempsey in command. Dempsey had already won fame by sinking the first Japanese destroyer lost in the war while in command of a tiny, World War I-era submarine.She is now permanently moored as a museum ship in Cleveland, Ohio, and is open to visitors.World War IIFirst and second patrolsCod arrived in Brisbane, Australia, on 2 October 1943 to prepare for her first war patrol. She sailed from there 20 days later. Penetrating the South China Sea, she contacted few targets, and launched an attack only once, on 29 November, with unobserved results. Returning to Fremantle, Western Australia, to refit from 16 December 1943 to 11 January 1944, Cod put to sea for her second war patrol in the South China Sea, off Java, and off Halmahera. On 16 February, she surfaced to sink a sampan by gunfire, and on 23 February, torpedoed a Japanese merchantman. She sent another to the bottom on 27 February and two days later attacked a third, only to be forced deep by a concentrated depth charging delivered by a Japanese escort ship.