pump room caused a temporary shutdown in the number one air conditioning plant before swift repairs enabled the ship to continue as before. On 15 July, Thornback sighted submarine , and the two boats exchanged information on their hunting areas. They also swapped movies, precious commodities for boosting morale on board the crowded boats. Six days later, Thornback proceeded north to patrol off Erimo Seki, an area which had recently seen a series of devastating carrier raids by Admiral William F. Halsey's Fast Carrier Task Force 38. The submarine's commanding officer noted somewhat humorously, "This area should be about as heavily traveled as the Sahara Desert after the working over it just had...." His assessment was correct—only straggling merchantmen and small patrol craft hugged the barren coasts. On 26 July, at 0320, Thornback submerged off Hei Saki. At 0400, the submarine's sound gear picked up the "pinging" projected by a snooping Japanese escort ship, and she came to periscope depth to have a look. Carefully maneuvering into position, Thornback fired one shot from her stern tubes at 04:29 and soon heard a small explosion which stopped the enemy's screws. Almost immediately the submariners picked up new sounds—two more escorts, "pinging" and coming aggressively closer. After sizing up the new attackers, Thornback felt that they were too small to use a torpedo on—besides, a Japanese floatplane had begun circling the area. A rowboat with a few Japanese sailors amidst a pile of flotsam testified to the fact that the first ship was no longer there. Satisfied that their quarry had been sunk, the submarine cleared the area. One of the other escorts gave up the chase and picked up survivors of her sunken sister. "All antisubmarine vessels have closed the beach," Thornback’s commander later recorded, "and seem to be pinging away at the rocks." Three days later, by periscope, the submarine spotted a 950-ton "sea truck", similar to Sanko Maru, at , close inshore. Unescorted, the Japanese presented a tempting target for a gun attack, but, no sooner had Thornback’s periscope shears and bow broken the surface, than the target slipped into the misty weather. Not to be daunted, Thornback followed, playing a cat and mouse game, and fired five torpedoes. All missed. She later sighted the enemy again, missed with three more torpedoes, and took the "sea truck" under fire. Despite poor visibility, Thornback closed to and scored numerous hits