Following fitting-out and shakedown training, Sterlet departed Key West, Florida, on 1 May 1944 to join the United States Pacific Fleet.

The submarine reached Pearl Harbor on 13 June 1944, and she immediately plunged into another round of training exercises to prepare for her first war patrol.

[8][9] By the time she put into Midway Island for refit on 26 August, the submarine was a battle-proven veteran, claiming to have sunk four enemy ships.

She even brought in a prisoner — a survivor from a Japanese convoy destroyed by American aircraft carrier planes three weeks earlier.

After sinking a small Japanese fishing boat on 9 October, Sterlet rescued six downed airmen off Okinawa.

On 31 October, she made a night surface attack on a tanker previously damaged by Trigger (SS-237) and apparently sank it with a spread of six torpedoes.

Sterlet completely depleted her supply of five-inch (127 mm) shells in the battle and was forced to sink the enemy craft with torpedoes early the following morning.

She made reconnaissance sweeps of the Japanese Fleet and patrolled with a "wolfpack" that also included Piper (SS-409), Pomfret (SS-391), Bowfin (SS-287), and Trepang (SS-412).

Sterlet’s fourth war patrol lasted from 29 April to 10 June and took her north of Japan to the Sea of Okhotsk and the vicinity of the Kuril Islands.

Though Soviet ships were advised to remain out of the war zone around Japan, Sterlet had to be extremely vigilant in her identification of potential targets lest she inadvertently attack an ally.

To further cloud the issue, Japanese ships probably attempted to disguise themselves as Soviets on several occasions to escape American submarines.

After more than an hour of running from the frigate and undergoing his bombardment, she managed to open range by firing four torpedoes "down the throat" at him.

This tactic did not allow her to escape, and the chase continued until the frigate turned broadside to fire both his forward and after guns in salvo.

That curious maneuver allowed Sterlet to open range to 8,000 yards (7,300 m) at which point, the enemy's radar wavered.

Except for one occasion when she shelled oil storage tanks and a power plant near Shingu on Honshū, this whole patrol was given over to lifeguard duty for the crews of carrier planes and B-29 Superfortresses attacking Japan.

On 26 February 1946, she started back to the western Pacific and after briefly stopping at Pearl Harbor, Guam, and Subic Bay, arrived in Tsingtao, China, on 20 April.

On 28 January, she sailed for the California coast and, after a brief stop at Midway and a six-week layover in Pearl Harbor, reached San Francisco on 30 April.

[11] Sterlet resumed operations along the West Coast early in 1951 and that employment continued until January 1953, when she was deployed to the Far East.

On this cruise, she joined in hunter-killer exercises, visited Chichi Jima, Atami, Japan, and Buckner Bay, Okinawa; and conducted photographic reconnaissance on Marcus Island.

On these cruises, usually of approximately six months duration, she participated in a host of exercises and war game problems and visited most major ports in the Far East, particularly those in Japan, Taiwan, China and in some of the Central Pacific islands.

She rendered her last service to the Navy on 31 January 1969 when she was sunk as a target by the nuclear-powered submarine USS Sargo (SSN-583).