FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
U.S.S. COD Thanks Cleveland for 50 Years of Support
CLEVELAND, July 30, 2009 – U.S.S. COD Submarine Memorial will mark 50 years in Cleveland with a special free admission day on Friday, August 14, 2009 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at her dock on N. Marginal Rd., between East 9th St. and Burke Lakefront Airport.
The 312-foot World War II sub is a floating memorial to those who died defending freedom over the 109-year history of the U.S. sub force. After her successful service in WW II, COD continued to protect America in the Cold War by training NATO anti-submarine forces. Brought to Cleveland in 1959 via the newly opened St. Lawrence Seaway, COD served as a dockside trainer for Cleveland reservists until the Navy declared her obsolete in 1971.
“Then a wonderful thing happened,” explains Dr. John Fakan, president of the civilian organization that owns COD today. “The very citizens she protected during her active duty saved COD from being scrapped.”
The school children, veteran’s groups and Scouts who began touring COD soon after her arrival in Cleveland didn’t want to see their favorite sub destroyed. When local business leaders formed a ‘Save the COD’ group in 1972, much of their funding came in the form of dimes and quarters from children, according to Fakan.
But COD’s popularity among Clevelanders goes far beyond the public’s affection for a plucky sub.
“COD may have been assembled in Connecticut in 1943, but she is actually a piece of Cleveland’s industrial history. Her five massive diesel engines were built in the General Motors plant on Cleveland’s West Side and much of the steel plate that forms her hull was made in Cleveland and Youngstown steel mills from Great Lakes ore,” says Fakan.
In 1976 the Navy turned COD over to her civilian caretakers, who began restoring COD to the way she looked when she defended America. In 1986 those efforts were recognized by the Federal Government which declared COD a National Historic Landmark. COD’s world-class restoration continues today and is focused on her Cleveland-built engines, according to Fakan.
“On August 14, COD will have a chance to say ‘Thank-You Cleveland’ with an open house and a very special afternoon ceremony where we plan to start up and run one of her Cleveland-built diesel engines for the first time in 40 years,” Fakan promises.
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