aircraft launch and recovery exercises. I-11 departed Kure on 7 June 1942 and proceeded to Kwajalein Atoll, which she reached on 16 June. She continued her floatplane launch and recovery exercises at Kwajalein, during which one member of her crew suffered injuries due to an aircraft catapult malfunction. On 8 July 1942, she embarked the commander of Submarine Squadron 3, Rear Admiral Chimaki Kono, who transferred his flag from the submarine tender , as well as his six-man staff and a war correspondent from the newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun. First war patrol I-11 originally was scheduled to put to sea from Kwajalein in company with the submarine on 8 July 1942, but her departure was delayed until 9 July, when she got underway to begin her first war patrol, assigned a patrol area in the Tasman Sea off the east coast of Australia. While on the surface there at 23:01 Australian Eastern Time on 20 July 1942, she hit the Greek 5,482-gross register ton steamer with one torpedo off Jervis Bay, New South Wales, Australia. George S. Livanos, which was carrying a cargo of 87 military motor vehicles, sank seven minutes later at . Still on the surface at 02:04 on 21 July, I-11 fired two torpedoes at the American 3,290-gross register ton armed merchant ship . Both torpedoes hit Coast Farmer amidships, and Coast Farmer sank 20 minutes later at . illuminated Coast Farmer′s lifeboats after the sinking, and after examining them headed southwest along the Australian coast. On 22 July 1942 at 05:45, I-11 was on the surface off the coast of New South Wales east of the lighthouse at Twofold Bay when she fired three torpedoes at the American armed Liberty ship , which was carrying a cargo of 82 jeeps, 72 half-ton pickup trucks, 60 one-ton trailers, and dozens of trucks, ambulances and halftracks. Two of the torpedoes hit, starting a fire, and William Dawes sank at approximately 16:30 at with the loss of one United States Army soldier and four members of her United States Navy Armed Guard killed and four personnel wounded. That evening, a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Bristol Beaufort torpedo bomber attacked unsuccessfully. As I-11 continued to work her way to the southwest, her lookouts sighted what they reported as a convoy of eight transports escorted by two light cruisers and two destroyers at about 12:00 on 24 July 1942. I-11 was