This footage shows the conning tower of USS Parche (SS-384), which visitors can enter here at the Pacific Fleet Submarine Museum. Bowfin’s conning tower sits directly above her control room, but because of its tight dimensions and steep vertical ladder, it isn’t accessible to the public. However, Parche was also a Balao-class diesel-electric submarine, launched only about six months after Bowfin, so they are very similar.

The conning tower served as a submarine’s attack and navigation center. Inside a space just 8 feet in diameter and 17 feet long, crews operated periscopes, radar, sonar, and the torpedo data computer — coordinating movements and targeting enemy ships, often under combat conditions. During action, as many as ten men could be crowded inside at once.

Stepping into Parche’s conning tower offers a look at how submariners worked in one of the smallest — and most critical — spaces aboard a WWII-era submarine.