USS Trutta (SS-421), a Tench-class submarine, was the only ship of the United States Navy to be named for the trutta, a variety of trout, distinguished from the typical trout by its small, black spots and its smaller and fewer scales. She was originally assigned the name Tomtate, often misspelled as Tomatate, and would have made her the only ship named for the tomtate, a food fish of warm American waters having a compressed body, a toothless palate, and conical jaw teeth, but was renamed Trutta on 24 September 1942. Her keel was laid down on 22 May 1944 by the Portsmouth Navy Yard. She was launched on 18 August 1944 sponsored by Mrs. Edward C. Magdeburger, and commissioned on 16 November 1944 with Commander Arthur C. Smith in command. First War Patrol Following outfitting and shakedown, Trutta underwent 30 days of intensive training in the Portsmouth-New London area and then set a course southward and steamed via the Canal Zone to arrive at Pearl Harbor on 25 February 1945. After a period of advanced training, Trutta got underway from Oahu with and , members of a coordinated attack group under Truttas direction and arrived at Saipan on 30 March. The following day, as she was leaving Tanapag Harbor on her first war patrol, the submarine struck a cable connected to an oil drum adrift in the charted channel and was forced to return to Saipan to repair her damaged propeller blades. The submarine finally got underway on 3 April and proceeded as rapidly as possible toward her patrol area. On 7 April, she changed course in an attempt to intercept a Japanese naval force which had sortied from Bungo Suido late the day before. It was feared that this task force, headed by Yamato, the world's largest battleship, would interrupt the assault on Okinawa to the south. Despite her full-power running, Trutta did not intercept the Japanese ships because they changed their course. Nevertheless, the Japanese force did not reach Okinawa because on that day fliers from the carriers of Vice Admiral Mitscher's Task Force 58 sank Yamato, light cruiser Yahagi, and destroyer Hamakaze, and inflicted irremediable damage to three other destroyers which the Japanese scuttled. After receiving news of this successful battle, Trutta headed southward on 9 April. Proceeding via the Nansei Shoto, she avoided the hostile notice of enemy aircraft and weathered gale-force winds and force-five seas