The USS Cod is a Gato-class submarine commissioned in 1943, credited with seven Japanese sinkings in the Pacific and a single rescue of the crew of a stricken Dutch submarine off the Philippines — the only successful sub-to-sub rescue in history. Decommissioned in 1971, the boat was moored on the Cleveland lakefront as a Navy memorial and never permanently modified, which means visitors enter through the original deck hatches and crawl through narrow steel passageways exactly as the crew did.
It is the most authentic of the American sub museums: no widened doors, no display cases blocking the way. Children love it; the claustrophobic should think twice. Open daily from May to October; closed in winter.