During a Pacific war patrol in which she inflicted only ‘meager damage,’ the submarine Cod nevertheless suffered her only loss of World War II.
American submarines began World War II handicapped by unreliable torpedoes and ineffective prewar doctrine. The doctrine changed almost overnight after Pearl Harbor, but it took some 20 months before the torpedoes could be considered generally reliable. Despite these initial problems, submarines, which never made up more than 2 percent of American naval strength, would account for more than half of all Japanese tonnage sunk during the war.
