Radio club honors sub, sacrifice of sailors

CLEVELAND (AP) — Bill Chaikin leaned forward and stretched out his right arm, his shoulders nearly brushing the dusty radio equipment filling the cramped room inside the steel hull. He set three fingers on a nearby telegraph key and started fishing.

His digits danced down and up and down again, drumming out a call in dots and dashes: “This is the World War II submarine USS Cod. W-8-C-O-D ...”

The South Euclid man pressed on for more than a minute, then listened for someone to tap back. It didn’t take long.

“When you get out there and say you’re in a submarine,” Chaikin said, “everyone wants to talk to you.”

It’s the bait that Chaikin and others in an amateur-radio club use to share the story of the Cod, which patrolled the South Pacific from 1943 until the war ended two years later. It sank dozens of enemy ships, including a Japanese destroyer, during seven missions through the salty waters.

Today, the decommissioned vessel — the only unmodified U.S. submarine of its era — spends its days moored on Lake Erie near the East Ninth Street pier. This year marks its 50th anniversary in Cleveland.

But that past ... it shouldn’t be forgotten, said Chaikin, 52, an Army veteran who signed on at the Cod a decade ago.

So the club members sign on most weekends from the submarine’s radio room, throwing out a line to other radio operators. The crew made more than 650 contacts — some via Morse code, others by voice — around the globe last year.

On a recent Sunday, Chaikin chatted with more than a dozen radio operators in a few hours and dropped details of the Cod in each exchange. An operator in Eureka, Mont., learned that the submarine spent 415 days on patrol. Another in Hollywood, Calif., heard about the Cod’s 88,254 miles sailed.

“That’s just amazing to have a station like yours out there,” the California man said.

The radio operators in the club know they’re lucky, too: “How many other guys have a World War II submarine as their clubhouse?” said Tom Gimmartino, 46, of Lakewood, a five-year member. “It really is incredible to sit in here and go out on the air.”

The radio equipment in use is almost all vintage, right down to the long-wire antennae strung 8 feet over the submarine’s decking. It stretches 85 feet along the starboard side.

The main difference today? Primarily, the work conditions.

“Nobody’s dropping charges on us,” Chaikin said.

More than 3,600 men died aboard the 52 U.S. submarines declared “overdue and presumed lost” after not making it back to base during World War II. Roughly one of every five submarines deployed ended up lost at sea, according to the Navy. American submariners suffered the highest casualty rate in the military.

It’s that sacrifice that the radio operators try to honor by keeping the Cod’s radio crackling.

“It’s about respect,” said Bill Lewis, 52, of Garfield Heights, an Army veteran who started using the Cod’s radio five years ago, “respect for the guys who did this when it counted.”