By James Heinz
As a lifelong student of Great Lakes history, I know that many people are fond of lighthouses. Many lighthouse fans believe that many lighthouses are haunted, even though lighthouses are government structures about which detailed records were kept showing that no one ever died there.
But there is one government structure on the Great Lakes where someone did die. And some say it is still haunted by his ghost.
COBIA in Milwaukee June 1960
The submarine USS COBIA SS-245 was launched in 1943 in Groton CT. A previous article I wrote about her history appears at https://wmhs.org/blog/page/9/ COBIA made six war patrols, officially sinking 16,385 tons of Japanese shipping. In 1959 she was brought to Milwaukee to serve as a Naval Reserve training ship and was moored on the lakefront. In 1970 she was given to and towed to the Wisconsin Maritime Museum in Manitowoc WI, where she remains on display today as a memorial to the World War II submarines built in Manitowoc.
You would not think that a submarine that is still afloat would not have had someone die aboard it. Submarines in wartime tend to either come back with an intact crew, or they do not come back at all. As the famous baseball player Satchel Paige once said of the early airlines, “They might kill you, but they’re not likely to hurt you.”
But one man did die on the COBIA, and his ghost is said to haunt the ship to this day.
Every year the Wisconsin Maritime Museum hosts Subfest, a celebration of all things submarine related. This year the celebration of America’s patriotic veterans was held on July 4.
I knew before I attended Subfest that a COBIA crewman had died in action aboard the sub. During her fourth war patrol on February 26, 1945, COBIA surfaced to engage and sink small Japanese vessels with her deck guns. One of the enemy “sea trucks” returned fire with a machine gun.
Ralph C. Huston, Jr.
The enemy gunfire hit the COBIA’s radar and mortally wounded sailor Ralph Clark Huston, Jr., the only COBIA casualty of the war. He was taken below where he died the next day. He was then buried at sea. A memorial to Ralph is mounted on her deck.
And at Subfest I met someone who has felt the presence of Ralph Huston today.
The COBIA has a dedicated crew of re-enactors who recreate the crew. At Subfest I met two of them, who asked that their identities be concealed. Both have long been interested in history, including the Civil War and World War II.
This is the first year either one of them had attended SubFest. They slept overnight on the sub in the bunks occupied by the crew. One of them said that the sub is not insulated and “you can hear a lot.” They recalled hearing a “scraping” sound along the side of the submarine, which was later identified as a sturgeon rubbing it’s back along the length of the submarine. They heard other people talking on the sub, and could hear people walking on the deck above them.
The night before I spoke to them, they had both slept on the sub. One of them believes they possess a sensitivity to paranormal phenomena that runs in their family. The other reports that they do not and does not remember dreams. Yet, on the night of July3/4, both of them had the same dream:
They were both chasing ghosts through the COBIA.
One reported that the peculiar smell of the sub “permeated the dream. You can’t shut it out.” The other had an even more dramatic experience, and woke up “in a state of paralysis”, unable to move. That one said they felt something struck the side of the bed, as if someone was trying to wake them up. This went on for 15 to 20 seconds. The sensation then stopped and the re-enactor rolled over and went back to sleep. That re-enactor had never experienced something like that before.
They said that their bunks were near the crew’s mess, where Ralph was taken after being hit twice by the Japanese return fire, once in an arm and once in the chest or abdomen. The corpsman on board amputated Ralph’s arm but could not stop the internal bleeding. Captain Albert Becker decided to head for Australia and better medical treatment but Ralph died the next morning. He was buried at sea.
One of them said that odd sensations have been experienced while on the sub in the past, like “you know how another person is there but you can’t see them, or like you know someone is behind you.” They said many re-enactors will not sleep on the boat.
They referred me to the website www.wisconsfrights.com, which lists the COBIA as one of Wisconsin’s allegedly haunted sites. The web site reports that tour guides have reported hearing odd noises on the boat, and that when they drop their keys through a floor grating into the sub’s lower level, they later find the keys hanging on their proper hook.
WMM submarine curator Karen Duvalle sent me some information and photos of Ralph Huston. Here is what she sent me:
Ralph C. Huston, Jr. on deck
Ralph Clark Huston, Jr., was born Dec 27, 1925, in Parkersburg, WV. He graduated from high school in 1943 and enlisted in the Naval Reserve Sep 9, 1943. He was sent to the Great Lakes Naval Training Center and graduated Dec 8, 1943. He attended further training at Newport, RI, where he was promoted to Seaman second class. He attended submarine school in New London, CT, until July 24, 1944. He was assigned to USS COBIA and reported aboard on Feb 12, 1944. On Feb 18, 1944 COBIA left Fremantle, Australia for her fourth war patrol in the Java Sea.
On Feb 26, 1944, at 6:15 pm Ralph was hit by machine gun fire from a Japanese ship. He was acting as a 20 mm cannon loader. The cannon was mounted on the submarine’s sail, which non-submariners call the conning tower. He was taken below for treatment, but died at 5:43 a.m. the next morning. At 6 pm he was placed on a door removed from the sub’s head (bathroom to you landlubbers) and taken on deck by four of his shipmates where he was buried at sea with full military honors with the ship’s captain Albert Becker officiating and another four of his shipmates acting as a Guard of Honor.
Photo by James Heinz
Ralph is not completely forgotten. A bronze plaque commemorating him is on the sail next to the 20 mm gun Ralph was serving when he was fatally wounded. A large, life size photo of Ralph standing at parade rest is displayed at the west end of the Wisconsin Maritime Museum.
Photo by James Heinz
According to one of the re-enactors, there may be a way to placate his ghost. When I asked if either one of them had experienced any further problems with Ralph’s ghost when they slept on the COBIA again the following night, one of them said:
“No, nothing more happened. But it may have been because we spoke out loud to Ralph, thanking him for letting us sleep on his boat and that we enjoyed the boat very much but we really needed a good night’s sleep. It was very odd because in contrast to the night before, I didn’t smell the boat at all in my sleep and I had a deep, sound sleep. So did the other re-enactor. And I only smelled the boat again once I was fully awake and took in a deep breath. The difference in the two nights couldn’t have been more stark.”
May the ghost of Ralph Clark Huston, Jr. rest in peace.
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James Heinz is the Wisconsin Marine Historical Society’s acquisitions director. He became interested in maritime history as a kid watching Jacques Cousteau’s adventures on TV. He was a Great Lakes wreck diver until three episodes of the bends forced him to retire from diving. He was a University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee police officer for thirty years. He regularly flies either a Cessna 152 or 172.
This story was originally posted on October 31, 2023.
