USS Pickerel ( SS - 177 ) USS " Pickerel " ( SS - 177 ) , a " Porpoise " - class submarine , was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the pickerel , a young or small pike . Her keel was laid on 25 March 1935 by the Electric Boat Company in Groton , Connecticut . She was launched on 7 July 1936 sponsored by Miss Evelyn Standley , and commissioned on 26 January 1937 , Lieutenant Leon J . Huffman in command . Service history . Inter - War Period . After her shakedown cruise , the new boat conducted training exercises out of New London , Connecticut until getting underway on 26 October 1937 and heading , via Guantánamo Bay , Cuba to transit the Panama Canal on 9 November . Joining the Pacific Fleet , " Pickerel " operated out of San Diego , California , along the West Coast , and in Hawaiian waters . Subsequently transferred to the Asiatic Fleet , she prepared for war with a vigorous training schedule in the Philippines . World War II . Upon receiving word of Japan ' s attack on Pearl Harbor , " Pickerel " - commanded by Lieutenant Commander Barton E . Bacon , Jr . - sped to the coast of French Indochina and conducted her first war patrol off Cam Ranh Bay and Tourane Harbor . She tracked a Japanese submarine and a destroyer but lost them in haze and rain squalls before they came in torpedo range . On 19 December , she also missed a small Japanese patrol craft with five torpedo es , before returning to Manila Bay on 29 December . On her second patrol - from 31 December 1941 – 29 January 1942 - conducted between Manila and Surabaya , the submarine sank " Kanko Maru " on 10 January 1942 . On her third war patrol - from 7 February - 19 March - along the Malay Barrier and her fourth - from 15 April - 6 June - in the Philippines , she failed to score ( although she did make an unsuccessful torpedo attack on the unarmed Japanese hospital ship Takasago Maru on 26 April ) . " Pickerel " s fifth war patrol , from 10 July to 26 August , was a voyage from Brisbane , Australia , to Pearl Harbor for refit , with a short patrol in the Mariana Islands " en route " , during which she damaged a freighter . On her sixth war patrol - from 22 January to 3 March 1943 , she searched among the Kurile Islands on the Tokyo - Kiska traffic lanes . In sixteen attacks , she sank " Tateyama Maru " and two 35 - ton sampans . She departed Pearl Harbor on 18 March 1943 and , after topping off with fuel and provisions at Midway Island on 22 March , headed for the eastern coast of northern Honshū , Japan and was never heard from again . " Pickerel " was the first submarine to be lost in the Central Pacific area . She was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 19 August 1943 . Post - war analysis of Japanese records give conflicting suggestions about " Pickerel " s fate . The Japanese officially credit her with sinking " Submarine Chaser Number 13 " on 3 April and " Fukuei Maru " on 7 April , and give no official report of her destruction . Those records also describe an action off Shiramuka Lighthouse on northern Honshū on 3 April 1943 in which naval aircraft first bombed an unidentified submarine , then directed " Shiragami " and " Bunzan Maru " to the spot , where they dropped twenty - six depth charge s . A large quantity of oil floated to the surface , which was often enough for Japanese ASW ships to believe their target was sunk . It is likely " Pickerel " s fuel oil bunker s leaked . Since there were several other ASW operations in the area in that period , and " Pickerel " was the only American submarine in that area ; one of these other attacks , sometime after 7 April , probably claimed her . Awards . " Pickerel " received three battle star s for World War II service .