The USS Cobia was docked outside the museum in the Manitowoc River. The freshwater river has helped preserve the submarine over the years since it's less corrosive than saltwater.

Becker served on the USS Silversides during the Cold War.

The USS Cobia sank 13 ships during its six patrols in World War II, earning four battle stars. The submarine also rescued seven downed American pilots.

After the war, the USS Cobia was brought to Manitowoc to serve as a memorial for submariners. The Wisconsin Maritime Museum acquired it in 1986. That same year, the USS Cobia became a National Historic Landmark and was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

It's not the first submarine to grace the shores of Manitowoc. The Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company, which was located just miles from the museum, built 28 submarines during World War II.

Becker told us that the USS Cobia actually spent most of her patrols on the surface of the water, not underwater.

"Cobia is basically a gunboat that can submerge if she has to, not like a true submarine like I was on," he said. "Cobia was better on the surface. Faster, more maneuverable, and way more firepower."

The stairs didn't exist during the USS Cobia's wartime service. Sailors used ladders to enter and exit the sub through narrow hatches.

The first stop on the tour, the forward torpedo room, featured pull-out bunks where torpedomen slept.

The captain's stateroom was not available to overnight guests out of respect for the rank.

I couldn't believe that a crew of 80 men once navigated the submarine's narrow spaces for months at a time.

Instead of doorways that could be walked through, the hatches required me to duck and climb through the small openings.

Becker said that during his submarine service in the Navy, he once hit his head while running through the ship after a call rang out for crew members to report to their battle stations.

"I didn't duck far enough, and, pow, I hit my head at the top of that thing," he said. "I damn near knocked myself out."

In the control room, which contained the ship's navigational equipment and controls, Becker opened a hatch in the floor that led to the pump room. I climbed down the ladder to take a look.

A laminated set of directions included 54 steps to operate the machinery. Becker said that crew members would have been working here all day and all night.

The USS Cobia has been so well maintained that many of its controls still work. The museum staff instructed us not to touch any of the buttons or switches while staying on the submarine to prevent any technical mishaps.

In the control room, Becker showed my dad how to pull the lever that sounded the "battle stations" alarm. I was surprised by how loud it was, but it needed to be heard over the roar of the submarine's four diesel engines.

Each seabag provided by the museum included a pillow, a pillowcase, a fitted sheet, a top sheet, and a microplush blanket.

Sailors received similar seabags during their submarine service.

The night we visited the USS Cobia, temperatures in Manitowoc reached a low of 16 degrees Fahrenheit. Thankfully, the submarine was heated, and the forward torpedo room was the warmest on the ship.

When the rank of chief petty officer was established in 1893, the officers' duties included managing the goats that were kept on ships to produce fresh milk. The goats were kept in the chief petty officer's quarters, which then became known as the "goat locker," according to the Naval History and Heritage Command.

Becker said that the nickname also poked fun at the senior officers, who were referred to as "old goats" since they had been in the Navy for a long time.

The goat locker contained five beds, and the mattress was surprisingly comfortable. The confined quarters reminded me of the night I once spent in a Dolly Parton-themed RV in Tennessee. Journalism is fun, kids.

Most crew members only received one cubic foot of space for their personal belongings, but higher-ranking officers had access to more storage in their bunks.

We brought our own food and ate on the submarine, but there are several restaurants located near the museum for visitors who want to dine out.

It was surreal to step inside an active museum exhibit and eat dinner alongside the fake food displayed on real US Navy tableware.

When guests sleep on the USS Cobia, the museum stays open for them all night. A staff member also sleeps at the museum to be available if guests need anything.

Staying on the submarine required going up and down its stairs and outside for every bathroom trip, which could prove difficult for those with mobility challenges or inconvenient for those who make frequent nighttime trips. The museum can also accommodate overnight guests inside the building if needed.

There was no phone service on the submarine, either.

"You are in an entirely metal encapsulated vessel, therefore cell phone service and internet is not available on board," the email with our check-in instructions read.

Ever since I watched "Night at the Museum," a 2006 film in which exhibits at the American Museum of Natural History come alive at night, I've wondered what it would be like to visit a museum after hours.

All of my "Night at the Museum" dreams came true at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum. We were given free rein to wander as we pleased.

Walking around the museum at night did feel different, similar to the way that watching a scary movie in the dark adds a certain gravitas.

I particularly enjoyed the exhibits about shipwreck artifacts discovered off the coasts of Wisconsin and the history of the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company. Even though I grew up in Wisconsin, I had no idea of the extent of its maritime history.

It's one thing to walk through a World War II submarine on a guided tour and imagine what life was like on board. It's another to fully immerse yourself in the experience by eating where they ate and sleeping where they slept.

I thought about what Becker told us during our tour as we walked through the crew's quarters — no matter how tough sailors seemed, the sound of tearful sniffles would always be audible at night.

"I don't care what ship it is — aircraft carrier, submarine — you're going to hear it," he said.

I'd been a little bit worried about getting seasick on the sub, but I didn't notice much movement and felt fine the whole time. I slept from around 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. then found it difficult to fall back asleep due to the chilly temperature on board.

I took advantage of the early hour and watched the sun's pink glow start to peek through the clouds.

The USS Cobia was equipped with three guns: a 50-caliber deck gun, a Bofors 40 mm gun, and an Oerlikon 20 mm cannon.

Cobia, pronounced KOH-bee-uh, is a species of fish.

At 312 feet, the USS Cobia was almost as long as the Green Bay Packers' Lambeau Field.

Breakfast included instant oatmeal packets, granola bars, muffins, bagels, orange juice, and coffee.

The USS Cobia exhibit inside the museum featured an immersive audiovisual presentation set in a model of the submarine's control room. Voice actors and animated crew members reenacted the USS Cobia's sinking of a Japanese ship loaded with 28 tanks headed to Iwo Jima in 1945.

The magnet cost $5.95.

Cullen, the museum director, hopes that when guests stay on the USS Cobia, it sparks "a moment of recognition of the tremendous sacrifice that submariners in World War II underwent."

"That's what museums really are here for," he said. "The objects are witness to history — witness to tremendous tragedy as Cobia was in wartime efforts, but also witness to the tremendous humanity of those moments in time that I think connect us as people cross-culturally and cross-generationally."

I also asked my dad for his take.

"Sleeping in the forward torpedo room with the gentle movement of the floating sub and the ever-prevalent smell of old diesel fuel long expired gave me a small taste of what life on a submarine must have been like," he said. "Truly a unique experience and a must for all militaria aficionados."

Indeed, the smell of diesel fuel lingered in my hair and on my clothes after our stay — a souvenir of its own.

In 1970, the USS Cobia was turned into a memorial for submariners in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, a town known for the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company, which built 28 submarines during World War II.

In 1986, the USS Cobia was designated as a National Historic Landmark, added to the National Register of Historic Places, and permanently docked for exhibition at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum.

General admission to the museum costs $20. Veterans pay $17, and active military service members receive free admission.

Tickets can be purchased on the Wisconsin Maritime Museum's website.

Becker worked as a cook on the submarine USS Silversides.

The museum also offers self-guided audio tours through an app, but I was excited to walk through the vessel with someone who had experience living and working on a submarine.

The front and middle of the deck were made of teak wood, which the Navy frequently used on submarines because it doesn't rot and doesn't float. If a piece of wood broke off, it wouldn't float to the surface and give away a submarine's position.

The back of the deck was made of steel since it was above the engines, which ran at high temperatures.

"Any US Navy ship that is flying that broom has made a clean sweep of the enemy from the sea. So in other words, they sunk an enemy ship," Becker said.

While bullets would bounce off the submarine, heavier artillery could punch holes in its surface.

Huston Jr. was fatally wounded in a firefight with Japanese warships in 1945 and buried at sea. He was the only USS Cobia crew member who died during the submarine's six war patrols.

Torpedomen, crew members who were in charge of loading and firing the torpedoes, slept in the room on pull-out bunks.

Each torpedo weighed over 3,000 pounds.

Sonar, an acronym for "sound navigation and ranging," uses sound pulses to detect and measure distances to targets.

Each section of the submarine could be sealed off from the others with watertight doors.

Officers ate the same meals as the rest of the crew.

The room was laid out like a restaurant booth, with benches on either side and a table in the middle. Food was served through a window connecting the ward room to the officers' pantry.

The more bunks in the room, the lower the officer's rank.

The room included a small pull-out bench and folding table and a closet to hang uniforms.

According to the Naval History and Heritage Command, the nickname dates back to 1893, when the officers' rank was established. Chief petty officers were in charge of the goats kept on ships to produce milk, and the animals were kept in their quarters.

Becker offered an alternative colloquial explanation.

"By the time a man makes a chief petty officer, he's been in the Navy for a while — at minimum 10, 15 years," he said. "So they called this the goat locker, as in, old goats."

The photo on the desk showed the USS Cobia's actual captain, Captain Albert Becker, who earned the Navy Cross and Silver Star Medal for his five war patrols with the submarine.

The yeoman handled all of the submarine's paperwork, including crew personnel records and order forms for food and mechanical parts.

The control room was staffed around the clock.

The main helm, or steering wheel, was located in the captain's conning tower located above the control room.

"Everything on a submarine has a backup," Becker said.

Dive planes acted like the fins of a whale, shifting the submarine's angle while diving or surfacing.

The inclinometer functioned like a carpenter's level, using a bubble to measure the submarine's tilt and slope.

Becker said that the submarine's SJ-1 radar is the oldest operational radar in the US.

"Not that I'm bragging, but we have the most awesome volunteers who come and work on the Cobia just because they love her," he said. "Those are 80-something-year-old radios with the big old tubes in them and stuff. These men will go to junk stores and scrap places and look for tubes."

The radar is so powerful that Becker said it can interfere with phone service in the surrounding town when it's turned on, which can elicit "nasty notes from the phone company" telling them to "turn that thing off."

Becker, a former submarine cook, said that food was key to the crew's morale, especially on holidays like Christmas when service members often felt homesick.

"When they catch a whiff of turkey or ham or cakes baking or anything like that, they catch that smell, it'll pop them out of it like that," he said.

Crew members ate in shifts since the room could only seat 24 people at a time.

Using a system called "hot racking," crew members shared bunks by rotating their use with people assigned to different shifts.

Each crew member was allotted one cubic foot of space for their personal items.

Showers were rare for sailors on the USS Cobia due to the submarine's limited supply of fresh water. Crew members could use one sinkful's worth of fresh water per day.

If the procedure was not properly followed, the contents would shoot back out, leading crew members to nickname the toilets "freckle-makers."

The two engines in the forward engine room still work.

With all of the heat from the engines trapped inside the submarine's steel frame, the average temperature on board was 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Most crew members wore cutoffs and sandals instead of uniforms.

The diesel engines charged the submarine's battery banks, which powered its electric motors.

Most of the freshwater supply went toward maintenance, not hygiene. The submarine's batteries required fresh water since they ran so hot that they evaporated their electrolyte fluid.

The USS Cobia could only charge its batteries while surfaced, so it usually moved slowly, around 2 to 3 miles per hour, to conserve battery power. Its maximum speed was 9 knots, or about 10 miles per hour.

"The faster we go underwater, the quicker the batteries are going to be depleted," Becker said. "Then you got to surface that much sooner."

During World War II, submarines had two torpedo rooms, one in the front and one in the back, so that torpedoes could be fired offensively and defensively, Becker said.

Walt Disney Studios designed over 30 submarine battle flags featuring cartoon-like sea creatures during World War II. While Disney didn't draw the cobia depicted on the USS Cobia's flag, it was likely inspired by the studio's other designs.

When I looked at my watch at the end of Becker's tour, I couldn't believe that nearly two hours had passed. The time flew by.

As I said goodbye and thanked him for the tour, I asked Becker about his favorite recipes from his service as a submarine cook. He said that the captain of the USS Silversides was a fan of his chocolate-chip cookies and once called the kitchen to ask for a plate when he smelled them baking.

"For the rest of the time he was on that boat, every morning when he woke up, there was a little plate of chocolate-chip cookies on his desk," Becker said. He pointed to his shoulder, indicating the spot where Navy uniform stripes indicate rank. "I got promoted."

Correction — December 13, 2024: A previous version of this article incorrectly listed the cost of adult admission to the Wisconsin Maritime Museum. It is $20, not $22.