USS Gabilan (SS-252), a Gato-class submarine, was the only ship of the United States Navy to be named for the gabilan, an eagle ray of the Gulf of California. Construction and commissioning Gabilan′s keel was laid down by the Electric Boat Co., Groton, Connecticut, on 5 January 1943. She was launched 19 September 1943, sponsored by Mrs. Eleanor James, wife of Rear Admiral Jules James, and commissioned on 28 December 1943, Commander K. R. Wheland in command. First and second war patrols, April – August 1944 After shakedown out of New London, Gabilan sailed for brief antisubmarine training at Key West before transiting the Panama Canal for the Hawaiian Islands. She arrived Pearl Harbor 23 March 1944 and spent her first war patrol (21 April – 6 June) scouting the Mariana Islands gathering information for the United States invasion of those islands. Her second war patrol (29 June – 18 August) took her to the south coast of Honshū, Japan, where, on the night of 17 July, she made a daring radar chase through bright moonlight and phosphorescent water. Skirting dangerous reefs and shoals, she pressed home an attack that sank a 492-ton minesweeper. Third and fourth war patrols, September 1944 – February 1945 Her third war patrol (26 September – 12 November) took her south of the Japanese Empire in company with and to detect the departure from Bungo Suido of any major enemy fleet units that might interfere with the liberation of the Philippine Islands. The latter part of the patrol was spent in an independent search of approaches of Kii Suido where, in a dawn periscope attack on 31 October, she destroyed oceanographic research vessel Kaiyō No. 6 with a single torpedo. Gabilan terminated her third war patrol at Saipan on 12 November 1944 and proceeded to Brisbane, Australia for refit. Her fourth war patrol was in the South China Sea (29 December 1944 – 15 February 1945). She joined and in a coordinated patrol off the southern entrance to Palawan Passage and the western approach to Balapac Strait, where Japanese battleships Ise and Hyūga were expected to appear en route to threaten American invasion forces in the Philippines. There were many quick dives to avoid aircraft; floating mines were sunk by rifle fire from the submarine, but there was no sign of their quarry. Passing back through the Java Sea en route to Fremantle, Australia, the