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The USS Cobia is a Gato-class submarine built by the Electric Boat Company of Groton, Connecticut in November 1943. In June 1944, it began the first of six war patrols in which it sank thirteen Japanese vessels for a total of 20,000 tons of enemy shipping. By July 1944, the Cobia had established itself in the annals of World War II sub history by attacking an enemy convoy bound for Japanese-held Iwo Jima. Cobia sank two vessels, including a troop transport carrying a Japanese tank battalion of twenty-eight tanks. U.S. Marines considered this sinking critical to their success in capturing Iwo six months later. Cobia's most colorful battle took place in February 1945, when it engaged two armed Japanese sea trucks in a running gun duel. Cobia sank both of them, but not without the loss of Ralph Clark Houston, a 20 mm gun loader and Cobia's only casualty of the war. Cobia was nearly lost in May 1945, during an eight-hour depth charging by the Japanese minesweeper Hatsutaka. The minesweeper attacked Cobia in 120 feet of water and blasted it over twenty feet into the muddy seafloor of the Gulf of Siam. The Cobia escaped intact, but heavily damaged.
Ever since World War II, Cobia's role has changed to keep pace with its various missions. By 1959, the U. S. Navy considered the Cobia obsolete as a deployable warship and transferred it to the Milwaukee Naval Reserve Center. There it served as a training platform for the next eleven years. In 1970, the Navy decommissioned Cobia and it was towed to Manitowoc to serve as an international memorial to submariners. In 1986, Cobia was incorporated as a part of the Manitowoc Maritime Museum, declared a National Historic Landmark, and placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
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