By March of 1945, the Pacific War was reaching its final, ferocious stages. The island-hopping campaign had brought American forces ever closer to the Japanese homeland, and the noose was tightening around the Empire of Japan. The skies above were thick with carrier-based aircraft, and beneath the waves, the silent hunters of the U.S. Navy submarines prowled the sea lanes, disrupting what little remained of Japan’s merchant fleet. Among these hunters was the USS Kete (SS-369), a Balao-class submarine that had already tasted action and was proving to be a formidable adversary beneath the waves.