When the USS Cod (SS-224) first slipped into the Pacific war, she was one of dozens of Gato-class submarines sliding down the ways in 1943. The war was still young for the Silent Service, but it had already turned into a proving ground for men and machines. By the time Cod was commissioned on June 21, 1943, under Commander James C. Dempsey, the submarine force had become America’s sharpest spear against Japan’s supply lines. Cod herself was a sleek, steel predator, long, lean, and packed with 24 torpedoes, a 5-inch deck gun, and the engines and batteries to make her a silent prowler beneath the seas. She was part of the answer to Japan’s sprawling empire: cut the lifelines, sink the ships, starve the war machine. But ships are only steel and rivets until men step aboard to bring them to life.