USS Tarpon ( SS - 175 ) USS " Tarpon " ( SS - 175 ) , second ship of this name , was laid down on 22 December 1933 at Groton , Connecticut , by the Electric Boat Corporation ; launched on 4 September 1935 ; sponsored by Miss Eleanore Katherine Roosevelt , daughter of Assistant Secretary of the Navy Henry L . Roosevelt ; and commissioned on 12 March 1936 , Lt . Leo L . Pace ( Class of 1921 ) in command . " Tarpon " operated out of San Diego and Pearl Harbor with Submarine Division 13 ( SubDiv 13 ) for several years and was then assigned to SubDiv 14 . In October 1939 , SubDiv 14 was transferred to the Philippines , augmenting the six old S - boat s at Manila . All submarines there were then reorganized into Submarine Squadron 5 . In October 1941 , SubDivs 15 and 16 were transferred from Pearl Harbor to Manila , increasing the Asiatic Fleet strength to 29 submarines . They were divided into five divisions ; " Tarpon " was assigned to SubDiv 203 . World War II . 1942 . Two days after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor , 18 submarines departed the Philippines on their first war patrols . " Tarpon " , under Lt . Comdr . Lewis Wallace , was assigned an area off southeastern Luzon . Since all the ships that she definitely identified as Japanese presented unfavorable firing angles , the submarine ended her patrol on 11 January 1942 at Darwin , Australia , without having fired a torpedo . " Tarpon " got underway on 25 January for her second patrol which took her to the Moluccas . On the 30th , she sighted a convoy ; but , since the enemy ships were well escorted , the submarine abandoned the chase . On 1 February , " Tarpon " fired a spread of four torpedoes at a freighter . One hit . She then fired two more ; both hit . Her victim was apparently sinking when the submarine left the scene of the attack , but postwar analysis of Japanese records did not confirm the kill . On 11 February , while investigating a surface contact . " Tarpon " was illuminated by the enemy ' s searchlight . She dived and went deep but was severely jolted by four depth charge s that knocked out her bow planes , rudder angle indicator , and port annunciator . On the night of 23 February – 24 February , " Tarpon " ran aground while attempting to navigate Boling Strait , west of Flores Island . Jettisoning ammunition , fresh water , fuel , and torpedoes failed to lighten the ship enough to float her off . A native boat then took an officer ashore on the island of Adunara , later returning with the only white man on the island , a Dutch missionary , Pastor H . von Den Rulst . He informed Wallace the next high tide would occur between 16 : 00 and 18 : 00 . His warning that Japanese planes had been over the island during each of the past four days caused the crew a bit of uneasiness until flood tide . Then , with three engines backing , she slid off the bottom , returning to Fremantle on 5 March . " Tarpon " began her third patrol on 28 March and ended at Pearl Harbor on 17 May with no contacts except a hospital ship . Her next mission , which took her north of Oahu for defense during the Battle of Midway , lasted only ten days , from 30 May to 9 June ; but the submarine contacted no enemy shipping . She was then routed back to San Francisco for an overhaul which was completed on 30 September . On 22 October , " Tarpon " stood out of Pearl Harbor to begin her fifth war patrol which took her to waters north of Bougainville . She sighted many fishing boats which were not worthy of a torpedo and terminated the patrol at Midway on 10 December 1942 . 1943 . " Tarpon " then returned to Pearl Harbor for a refit and began her next patrol from there on 10 January 1943 , with Tom Wogan at the helm . Her assigned area was in Japanese home waters , south of Honshū . At 21 : 30 on 1 February , approximately south of Mikurashima , the submarine fired four torpedoes at a ship and scored one hit . A follow - up attack with two torpedoes broke the 10 , 935 - ton passenger - cargo ship " Fushimi Maru " in two . Four days later , " Tarpon " began patrolling the sea lanes leading to Truk . On 8 February , she made radar contact on a large , unidentified ship . She fired a spread of four torpedoes , and all hit the target . The submarine was forced to go deep by escorts and could not watch the 16 , 975 - ton transport sink . The victim was the " Tatsuta Maru " , bound for Truk with a load of soldiers . " Tarpon " made no further contacts before returning to Midway on 25 February , with the highest - scoring patrol of the war so far . Her seventh patrol , conducted from 29 March to 15 May , produced no ship contacts ; but " Tarpon " did bombard the radio station at Taroa with her deck gun until return fire from Japanese batteries ashore prompted her to withdraw from the area . On 30 July , " Tarpon " again headed for Japanese home waters . On 16 August , she sighted a Japanese task force which reportedly included an aircraft carrier of the " Otaka " - class ( there was , in fact , no such class ; intelligence had misidentified " Taiyo " , but its high speed prohibited an attack . On the 21st , the submarine contacted two large , escorted , cargo ships . She fired a spread of three torpedoes at each and damaged both targets . Seven days later , " Tarpon " damaged another freighter as it was leaving Mikura Shima . On 4 September , she sank a patrol ship with all hands and then returned to Midway on 8 September . " Tarpon " conducted her ninth war patrol off the coast of Honshū from 1 October to 3 November . On the night of 16 October , she was patrolling the approaches to Yokohama when she sighted a ship which she tentatively identified as a large auxiliary . The submarine tracked the target until 01 : 56 the next morning when she attacked it with four torpedoes which stopped it dead in the water . However , it soon got underway again and headed straight for " Tarpon " . The submarine submerged , went under the ship , and attacked the target from the other side with three more torpedoes which produced one hit in the stern . The enemy still did not sink , so " Tarpon " fired again with a torpedo which struck the target in the same place as the first . The vessel exploded and disappeared . Postwar examination of enemy records revealed that the victim was the German raider " Michel " ( " Schiff " 28 ) which had been preying on Allied shipping in both the Atlantic and the Pacific . " Michel " was the only German raider sunk by a United States submarine in the Pacific . Four days later , " Tarpon " contacted an aircraft carrier and a destroyer . She made a submerged approach and fired four torpedoes at the carrier . However , both ships speeded up and avoided . On the morning of 23 October , the submarine made radar contact on two ships and fired five torpedoes at the larger target . All apparently passed under the freighter . The submarine returned to Pearl Harbor on 3 November . " Tarpon " ' s next war patrol , a photo reconnaissance of various atolls in the Marshall Islands group from 4 December 1943 to 12 January 1944 , was largely uneventful . She did get an opportunity at an inter - island tanker and fired two torpedoes , but both missed and the vessel escaped . 1944 . From 19 June to 8 August , " Tarpon " performed lifeguard duty in the Truk area , but made no rescues . On 14 July , she fired three torpedoes at what was thought to be an inter - island freighter . All missed , and the ship turned out to be a disguised antisubmarine ship . " Tarpon " went deep to evade the depth charges and cleared the area . On the 25th , she made radar contact on a small convoy and fired three torpedoes at the largest ship . All missed , and the submarine closed to engage with her deck guns . After the second shot , the gun jammed , and only the machine guns continued firing . " Tarpon " withdrew to clear the gun and then returned to the attack . She inflicted considerable damage on the enemy ship before she was outgunned and forced to break off the engagement . " Tarpon " ' s final war patrol , from 31 August to 14 October , consisted of lifeguard duty in the Truk area . When she returned to Pearl Harbor , she was ordered to the east coast of the United States . The submarine departed Pearl Harbor on Christmas Eve , 1944 , and arrived at New London , Connecticut , on 17 January 1945 . Post - war . After operations on the east coast , " Tarpon " was decommissioned at Boston on 15 November 1945 . Early in 1947 , the submarine was scheduled for duty as a Naval Reserve training ship . " Tarpon " left Boston under tow on 28 March and arrived at New Orleans on 9 April and was placed in service there on the 17th . She served as a training submarine in the 8th Naval District until placed out of service and stricken from the Navy list on 5 September 1956 . " Tarpon " foundered in deep water , south of Cape Hatteras , North Carolina , on 26 August 1957 , while under tow to the scrap yard . Her wreck is located at . " Tarpon " received seven battle star s for World War II service .