offshore and watched while they loosed their remaining bombs on installations near Akune: a railroad bridge, a fuel dump, and a factory. The remainder of March proved relatively unproductive. In the absence of targets worthy of torpedoes, the submarine contented herself with the destruction of floating mines and with the sinking of two tiny trawlers on 28 March. Early on 3 April, an enemy bomber forced her to dive, and she ran submerged for the remainder of the day. That evening, she surfaced once again and soon made radar contact with a good-sized target. The fact the enemy ship carried radar, coupled with the appearance of a second target larger than the first, indicated she was some type of warship escorting a merchantman. Darkness and fog dictated a surface attack. Tench’s report claims the target, the large cargoman, took one torpedo hit and erupted in a splendid pyrotechnic display. Unfortunately, there is no evidence to confirm the kill. Tench’s first war patrol had begun soon after the invasion of Iwo Jima and continued past the landings on Okinawa. American planners had foreseen the possibility of Japan's attempting to strike back at the Allied forces with what remained of the Imperial surface fleet. They therefore stationed a picket line of submarines off Japan to serve as an early warning system. Tench received orders to join this patrol line before concluding her war patrol. She was on station off the western coast of the Japanese home islands when the Yamato task force sortied on 6 April to contest the Okinawa landings. Tench did not make a sighting, since Yamato sortied from the Bungo Suido. That station was assigned , which raised the alarm; the picket line was disbanded, and each submarine turned to its own individual mission. In accordance to orders, Tench cleared the area for an air-sea rescue sweep of the East China Sea before ending her patrol. On 8 April, she picked up the pilot and radioman from a dive-bomber from and then headed for Guam where she arrived on 14 April. Second War Patrol Refit completed and her crew rested, Tench (now skippered by Tom Baskett) returned to sea early in May for her second war patrol. That patrol took her again to the Japanese homeland, but this time to the Tsugaru Strait between Honshū and Hokkaidō, the northern entrance to the Sea of Japan. Her mission was to