6 July, and then got underway for the Davao Gulf off Mindanao in the Philippine Islands. On 20 July 9144, she made an unsuccessful attack on a Japanese Nagara-class light cruiser from an extreme range. On 22 July, she sighted a ship of about 1,000 tons, but her spread of four torpedoes ran harmlessly beneath the ship, which responded with 11 depth charges. Off the entrance to Sarangani Bay on 1 August 1944, she encountered a Japanese cargo ship with three escorts. She attained a good firing position, but the escorts detected her and the cargo ship began radical evasive maneuvers. With depth charges coming down around her, Bluegill abandoned her attack and escaped. While off Maculi Point on Mindanao on 7 August 1944, Bluegill spotted a Japanese cargo ship accompanied by two escorts, a decoy vessel, and three aircraft overhead. She set up on the cargo ship, and two of the four torpedoes that she fired struck home. She was forced deep by a barrage of 36 depth charges. She later learned that her target, the 4,642-gross register ton Sanju Maru, had gone to the bottom. On 13 August 1944, Bluegill caught sight of a Japanese cargo ship escorted by two torpedo boats, two submarine chasers, and a decoy vessel. She launched a spread of four torpedoes that found two targets, the 300-displacement ton Submarine Chaser No. 12 and the 1,931-gross register ton cargo ship Kojun Maru. At that point, she headed for Australia and, after a stop at Darwin in the Northern Territory, she concluded her patrol with her arrival at Fremantle, Western Australia, on 24 August 1944. Third war patrol Bluegill departed Fremantle on 18 September 1944 to begin her third war patrol, which took her to the Sulu Sea, the Sibuyan Sea, and the South China Sea. On 6 October 1944, she encountered an interisland steamer off Bondoc Point on southern Luzon in the Philippine Islands and riddled it with gunfire. The steamer remained stubbornly afloat at the approach of darkness, so Bluegill was forced to expend a torpedo to sink it. On 12 October 1944, Bluegill surfaced in the midst of three small Japanese cargo ships of a type known to the Americans as "sea trucks" off Tumao Point on northwestern Mindanao. She opened gunfire on them and soon scored hits on two of the three. However, the sea trucks were armed with heavy machine