[12] Tusler's plan was to lift the submarine in three stages to prevent it from rising too quickly, out of control, with one end up, in which case the likelihood of it sinking again would be high.

On 13 July 1939, the stern was raised successfully, but when the men attempted to free the bow from the hard blue clay, the vessel began to rise far too quickly, slipping its cables.

Ascending vertically, the submarine broke the surface, and 30 feet (10 m) of the bow reached into the air for not more than ten seconds before she sank once again all the way to the bottom.

[18] Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Sailfish departed Manila on her first war patrol, destined for the west coast of Luzon.

On the morning of 27 January 1942, off Halmahera, near Davao, she sighted a Myōkō-class cruiser, making a daylight submerged attack with four torpedoes, and reporting the target was damaged, for which she got credit.

After sighting the heavy cruiser Houston and two escorts heading for Sunda Strait following the Allied defeat in the Battle of the Java Sea, Sailfish intercepted an enemy destroyer on 2 March.

Leaving the target aflame and dead in the water, Sailfish dove, the escorts delivering 40 depth charges in the next 90 minutes.

[22] She eluded destroyers and aircraft and arrived at Fremantle, Western Australia, on 19 March, to great fanfare, believed to be the first U.S. submarine to have sunk an enemy carrier.

After delivering 1,856 rounds of antiaircraft ammunition to "MacArthur's guerrillas",[22] she made only one ship contact and was unable to attack the target before returning to Fremantle.

On 4 July, she intercepted and tracked a large freighter, but discovered the intended target was a hospital ship and held her fire.

Shifting her base of operations to Brisbane, Sailfish (now under the command of John R. "Dinty" Moore)[26] got underway for her sixth patrol on 13 September and headed for the western Solomon Islands.

Departing Hawaii on 17 May for her eighth patrol, she stopped off to fuel at Midway Island and proceeded to her station off the east coast of Honshū.

Sailfish once more fired three stern tubes, sinking Iburi Maru; in response, the subchaser, the aircraft, and three additional escorts,[27] pinned her down in a gruelling depth-charge attack lasting 10 hours and 98 charges, but causing only slight damage.

[28] Her ninth patrol (commanded by William R. Lefavour)[29] lasted from 25 July–16 September and covered the Formosa Strait and waters off Okinawa.

It produced only two contacts (a 2500-ton steamer at Naha, Okinawa, and a junk),[27] but no worthwhile targets, and Sailfish thereafter returned to Pearl Harbor.

Diving to elude the Japanese counterattack, which was hampered by the raging seas, Sailfish came to periscope depth, and at 07:58 saw the carrier lying dead in the water, listing to port and down by the stern.

[35] In an ironic twist, Chūyō was carrying American prisoners of war from Sculpin, the same boat that had helped locate and rescue Sailfish—then Squalus—over four years before.

Sailfish heard Totai Maru (3,000 GRT)[34] break up and sink as the destroyers made a vigorous but inaccurate depth-charge attack.

[39] On 24 August, south of Formosa, Sailfish made radar contact with an enemy convoy consisting of four cargo ships escorted by two small patrol craft.

The cargo ship Toan Maru (2100 GRT)[39] was enveloped in a cloud of smoke and shortly afterward broke in two and sank.

Surfacing after escaping a depth-charge attack, Sailfish closed on a second cargo ship of the convoy, scoring two hits out of four torpedoes fired.

The submarine's crew felt the cargo ship either had been sunk or badly damaged, but the sinking was not confirmed by JANAC postwar.

[40] Sailfish terminated her 11th patrol at Midway on 6 September; her wartime credit was four ships for 13,200 tons, a total reduced to just one of 2100 GRT (Toan Maru) postwar.

On 12 October, staying surfaced in full view of enemy attackers,[41] she rescued 12[41] Navy fliers who had ditched their stricken aircraft after strikes against Japanese bases on Formosa.

The submarines pulled into Saipan, arriving on 24 October, to drop off their temporary passengers, refuel, and make minor repairs.

After alerting Pomfret of the convoy's location and course, Sailfish was moving into an attack position, when one of the escorting destroyers headed straight for her.

Shortly, Sailfish headed for Hawaii, via Midway, and completed her 12th and final war patrol upon arriving at Pearl Harbor on 11 December.

[43] Agreement was reached to have her conning tower saved, which was dedicated in November 1946 on Armistice Day, by John L. Sullivan, then Undersecretary of the Navy.

"Swede" Momsen and James B. Sikking as Admiral Cyrus Cole, depicted the events surrounding the loss of USS Squalus and the rescue of her 33 survivors.

In 2006, BBC TV presented a series of programs entitled Voyages of Discovery, the first of which, called "Hanging by a Thread", told the story of the USS Squalus rescue mission, as narrated by Paul Rose.