Sawfish was laid down on 20 January 1942 by the Portsmouth Navy Yard at Kittery, Maine; launched on 23 June 1942; sponsored by Hattie Wyatt Caraway, the first woman to be elected to the United States Senate; and commissioned on 26 August 1942.

After shakedown off Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in Narragansett Bay, and en route to the Panama Canal, Sawfish arrived at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on 21 January 1943.

During her fourth patrol, 10 September to 16 October, defective torpedoes frustrated the seven attacks which she made in the Sea of Japan before she returned to Midway.

Although the submarine reported scoring two hits on the cargo ship, Japanese records contain no evidence of any sinking in the vicinity of the attack.

After a fruitless chase of a large Japanese convoy, the wolfpack ended the patrol at Pearl Harbor on 15 August.

The pack departed Pearl Harbor on 9 September and headed for waters south of Formosa where the submarines took a heavy toll on enemy shipping.

On 16 October, she rescued a pilot from VF-15 of USS Essex) who had survived four and one-half days at sea in a small rubber boat without food, water, or sunshade.

Sawfish got underway on 17 December 1944 and returned to waters off Formosa where she spent her entire ninth war patrol on lifeguard station.

Sawfish sailed on 10 March for her 10th and last war patrol, which she spent on lifeguard station off Nansei Shoto supporting air strikes preparing for and covering the conquest of Okinawa.

She returned to Pearl Harbor on 26 April and soon proceeded to San Francisco for overhaul in the Bethlehem Steel Company yard there.