circled the 3,275-ton United States freighter Malama bound for New Zealand from Honolulu with a cargo of US Army Air Force trucks and aircraft engines. The seaplane was observed by Malama, but was apparently lost to operational problems before returning to Aikoku Maru. The squadron commenced a search for the missing seaplane at 1810 and searched through the moonlit night. Aircraft were launched at 0700 on 1 January 1942 to expand the search. One of the seaplanes found Malama at 0910, circled at low altitude and ordered the ship to stop with a burst of machine gun fire. Malama began to broadcast distress messages which continued until 1415. Admiral Takeda was away, but intercepted the distress calls and ordered the plane to return to be rearmed with bombs. Malama was scuttled by her crew at a position 25 south, 155 west when the aircraft returned. The squadron left the area after taking the freighter's crew of 38 aboard as prisoners. On 8 January 1942, the raiders resumed search operations and between 16 and 20 January the squadron intercepted extremely loud radio signals causing them to believe Allied warships were nearby. They successfully evaded detection by Admiral William Halsey's Task Force 8. They replenished at Truk on 4 February 1942 and transferred the prisoners to the Oita Bay Naval Air Command on 13 February. The squadron then entered the Kure Navy Yard where each ship received eight modern 14 cm (5.5-inch) guns to replace the four 15 cm (5.9-inch) guns of Russo-Japanese War vintage installed the previous autumn. More modern seaplanes were embarked when the squadron deployed to the Indian Ocean with the additional duty of resupplying the Japanese submarines operating in the Mozambique Channel. Between 5 June and 13 July 1942, the submarines sank 21 ships, for a total of 92,498 tons. The Hōkoku Maru and Aikoku Maru added additional ships to that score. With these successes, they had sunk or captured five merchant ships within a year, totalling 31,303 tons. They left Singapore on 5 November on their fourth sortie, under the overall command of Captain Imazato Hiroshi. Victims of Japanese raiders included the , a Dutch vessel of 7,987 tons, which was captured on 9 May 1942; the , a British vessel of 6,757 tons), which was sunk on 5 June 1942; and the , a New Zealand vessel of 7,112 tons, which was captured on 12 July