Qualla: USS Cochino

USS Cochino: Introduction

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. On the evening of August 25, 1949, the submarine USS Cochino was running on her snorkel in Arctic waters off northern Norway when a polar storm found her. The seas were enormous. Each wave slammed the snorkel with enough force to jolt the entire boat, and somewhere below the waterline, the pounding cracked open a battery compartment. An electrical fire erupted, followed by an explosion, followed by the silent and far more dangerous release of hydrogen gas into the hull. For the next fourteen hours, the crew of the Cochino and sailors from her companion vessel USS Tusk fought to save the boat in conditions so violent that standing upright was an achievement. They failed. Cochino sank on August 26, 1949, taking with her a Cold War secret that would not surface for decades.

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Image: Public domain

USS Cochino: Named for a Triggerfish

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. USS Cochino (SS-345) was a Balao-class submarine built by the Electric Boat Company at Groton, Connecticut. Laid down on April 13, 1944, launched on April 20, 1945, and commissioned on August 25, 1945 -- the day Japan formally agreed to surrender terms -- she was named for the co...

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Image: Public domain

USS Cochino: A Secret Mission North

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Cochino emerged from the Groton yard in February 1949, newly modernized and capable of extended submerged operations using her snorkel system. By summer she was in European waters for the first time, calling at Derry in Northern Ireland and Portsmouth in England before heading no...

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Image: Public domain

USS Cochino: Fourteen Hours in a Polar Storm

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The storm struck on August 25. Running on her snorkel to recharge batteries while remaining submerged, Cochino took a beating that exceeded anything her design could absorb. The massive waves hammered the snorkel mechanism with such violence that the shocks traveled through the h...

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Image: Public domain

USS Cochino: Abandon Ship

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. A second battery explosion on August 26 ended the struggle. The order came: abandon ship. What followed was a rope transfer between two submarines in heavy Arctic seas -- the kind of evolution that no manual covers because no manual assumes conditions this extreme. Cochino's crew...

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Image: Public domain

USS Cochino: Cold War Ghost

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Cochino was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on October 27, 1949. She remains one of only four United States Navy submarines lost since the end of World War II. Her wreck lies somewhere in the deep waters off northern Norway, at coordinates the Navy recorded but has never ...

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Image: Public domain