Schade to worry that it might be difficult to release safely the 25 captured crewmen she now had aboard. At 14:10, Bugara sank a brand-new 37-gross register ton coastal cargo ship flying the Rising Sun flag after its crew abandoned ship. It had been carrying sugar from Singapore to Champon, Thailand. The boarding party then moved on to contact number 40 of Bugara′s war patrol, a 33-ton coastal cargo ship also flying the Imperial Japanese Navy ensign, and Bugara′s gunners sank her. At 14:32, Bugara closed the coast, where her lookouts spotted a number of fishing boats. Stopping alongside one of the larger ones, Bugara transferred the 25 captured crewmen she had aboard to it. Moving on at 15:00, Bugara received word of a downed United States Army Air Forces B-24 Liberator bomber to the north, and set off at full speed to search for its crew, Schade hoping that other submarines could join Bugara so that they could mount a coordinated search. The submarine joined Bugara at 22:00, but the submarines were forced to wait until dawn to begin their search, as it was too dangerous to conduct a rescue in hostile waters at night. 1–4 August At 03:15 on 1 August 1945, the submarine joined Bugara and Lamprey, and at dawn the three submarines formed a scouting line and began a coordinated search for the missing B-24′s crew. At 15:30, Bugara received orders to halt the search. She passed these orders to the commanding officers of Cobia and Lamprey and parted company with the other two submarines. At 16:00, Bugara returned to her patrol station. On 2 August 1945, after sighting a large schooner, Bugara closed with and boarded her. The 211-gross register ton schooner carried a cargo from Singapore of what her manifest called "miscellaneous gear," but Bugara′s boarding party was unable to make a good search in the dark, so Bugara took off the schooner′s crew and two lifeboats and sank her with gunfire. Soon after, one of the lifeboats sank. The other was too heavy to haul on deck, so Bugara towed it behind her. At 04:00, that lifeboat also sank after it became caught in the port screw, damaging it. At 08:09 on 2 August 1945, Bugara boarded a 20-gross register ton Malaccan coastal cargo ship carrying coffee. Because she was flying the Japanese flag, Bugara removed her crew and sank her with gunfire.