In the summer of 1945, USS Spikefish (SS-404) was a young boat in a veteran’s war. A Balao-class submarine commissioned only months earlier, she was part of the U.S. Navy’s relentless undersea campaign that had, by then, strangled Japan’s maritime lifelines. Built for endurance and stealth, the Balao class represented the peak of American submarine design in World War II, long-ranged, heavily armed, and capable of diving deeper than their predecessors. Spikefish was on her second war patrol in August 1945, operating in the waters south of Japan, where danger still lingered in every sonar ping and radar contact.