a tanker, and dived as a destroyer raced in to counterattack. Heavy explosions were heard, and a 2½-hour depth charge pounding followed. During the action, Ray heard another violent explosion and the sounds of a ship breaking up, as the tanker Nansei Maru went down. The submarine surfaced that evening and pursued the convoy into Palawan Bay. Air cover prevented a daylight attack, but the wolfpack of Ray, , and waited for the ships to come out. Ray fired her four remaining torpedoes at a passenger-cargo ship. Three fish missed, but the fourth hit the Taketoyo Maru amidships. The escorts forced Ray to dive, but she heard the 7,000-ton cargo vessel break up. The submarine underwent a sustained depth charge pounding, but escaped serious damage, returning to Fremantle 31 August. Sixth war patrol, September–December 1944 The submarine's sixth war patrol, 23 September to 8 December, took her to the familiar waters of the South China Sea. On 6 October and 7 October, she twice torpedoed a tanker, inflicting undetermined damage. Five days later, she destroyed the cargo ship Toko Maru with two direct hits and escaped a subsequent depth charge attack. On 14 October, while making a crash dive to escape a Japanese patrol plane, Rays conning tower was flooded by an improperly secured hatch, but she was brought under control before reaching . However, the damage forced the submarine to put into Mios Woendi for repairs during the last week of October. On the afternoon of 1 November, Ray closed a five-ship convoy, sinking the cargo ship Horai Maru No. 7, and damaging a small tanker. Escaping the escorts, she landed men and supplies on the west coast of Mindoro, Philippines, picking up two downed Navy fliers, two Army POW's escaped from Corregidor, and an escaped Filipino political prisoner. On the night of 4 November, the sub sighted a cargo ship with its superstructure aflame, from an earlier attack by . She launched two torpedoes, scoring a hit amidships and blowing away the bow of the Kagu Maru. On 6 November, SS-271 intercepted a convoy of two heavy cruisers, and several transports, protected by surface and air escorts. Ray fired six rear torpedoes at the , damaged earlier by . One of Ray's torpedoes hit Kumano's forward magazine, destroying its bow. Immediately prior to this, Ray had been forced to dive under Kumano in order to escape aerial and