USS Bowfin was a Balao-class fleet submarine built at Portsmouth Navy Yard in Maine during the Second World War. Christened on 7 December 1942, one year after the attack on Pearl Harbor, she entered commission on 1 May 1943. Her pressure hull, diesel-electric machinery, torpedo armament, range, and crowded internal arrangement reflected the United States Navy's strategy for long Pacific patrols. After training, Bowfin sailed from Pearl Harbor on the first of nine war patrols conducted between 1943 and 1945 under several commanding officers.

Bowfin attacked Japanese shipping across the western Pacific, operating near Japan, the Philippines, the Netherlands East Indies, and other contested waters. Her crew endured depth charges, mechanical strain, heat, limited fresh water, long submerged periods, and the moral and physical realities of unrestricted submarine warfare. Patrol reports credited the boat with numerous sinkings, though postwar assessment revised some wartime totals. The submarine also rescued personnel and supported special missions. Accounts should recognize that targets included vessels carrying soldiers, laborers, and civilians, and that losses at sea affected many nationalities.

Decommissioned in 1947, Bowfin returned to service during the Korean War era and later performed training duties before final decommissioning in 1971. The Navy struck her from the register in 1976. A nonprofit organization brought the submarine to Hawaiʻi, where she opened as a memorial and museum in 1981 near the Pearl Harbor Visitor Center. The location connects the preserved boat with the attack that brought the United States into the war and with the broader history of Pacific submarine operations, including the many American submarines and crews that never returned.

Bowfin survives afloat with her original wartime hull form and much machinery, fittings, compartments, and equipment, but decades of naval alteration, deactivation, restoration, replacement, and maintenance changed the vessel. Weapons are inert, hazardous systems were removed or secured, and stairs, barriers, lighting, ventilation, labels, and visitor routes support public access. Exterior coatings and corroded steel require continual work in a marine environment. The adjacent museum and memorial grounds are modern, purpose-built interpretive facilities containing relocated weapons, artifacts, and monuments rather than original components of Bowfin's wartime base.

The Pacific Fleet Submarine Memorial Association operates the submarine and museum park, with ticketing and physical-access restrictions reflecting the vessel's narrow ladders and confined spaces. Stewardship involves dry-docking, hull surveys, corrosion control, mechanical conservation, archival research, and care for collections. Interpretation should avoid judging historical significance solely by disputed tonnage scores or presenting immersive access as an unchanged wartime experience. Bowfin is an authentic surviving submarine adapted for visitors, and its strongest story joins technology and combat operations with crew life, enemy and civilian losses, postwar reuse, memorial culture, and demanding preservation afloat.