Nope, not inspired by anything but imagination. The Navy would never throw away a submarine in 1943 unless it was damaged beyond repair. They'd remove whatever the problem was, replace it, repaint it, stick a new crew on it and send it back out. The war was still going too badly in 1943 to just tie a boat up to the dock and leave it.
In reality, had this happened, the Navy would have moved the boat to some remote spot or sunk it outright. More likely, they would have towed it to the bikini A bomb test after the war and parked it right under where the bomb went off. End of problem.
If you like this sort of story, I would recommend a book titled "Ghost Boat". It's a fictional story involving a fictional submarine named USS Candlefish, which disappeared during the war and reappeared long after with the crew missing. The authors name escapes me, however.
I was on the Actual USS Lionfish in Fall River, Mass yesterday (8/7) and the boat is in very poor condition, actually rusted through in several places. Sad, really. The Lionfish had a fairly dismal war record and was actually built by the worst shipyard that built subs during the war (Cramp shipyards in Philly). Took more than two years to build, way longer that most other boats, so it was kind of a cursed submarine to begin with. Laid down in 1942 and not put into service until 1945, this is twice as long as most boats. There's a photo of the Lionfish being towed incomplete to Boston Navy Yard in 1943 or 1944, so bad was the Cramp yards.
I was with my buddy who is an actual Submariner, and when he got to the bottom of the ladder, he sniffed the air and said:
"Yep, smells like a submarine..."
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