another cargo ship on 3 August. On 11 August, Finback damaged the auxiliary minelayer Tatsumiya Maru (6343 tons). She encountered two small minelayers, a tug, and an inter-island steamer on 19 August, and engaged all but the tug with surface gunfire, damaging the auxiliary submarine chaser and sinking the former Dutch patrol vessel Kawi, renamed Cha 109 (75 tons). Her limited supply of ammunition forced her to break off the action. 1944 Seventh and eighth patrols After a major overhaul at Pearl Harbor between 12 September and 15 December 1943, Finback sailed for the South China Sea on her seventh war patrol, characterized by heavy weather, few contacts, and continuous sightings of patrol planes. She sank the tanker Isshin Maru (10044 tons) in a surface attack on New Year's Day 1944, after it was unable to keep up with its convoy due to a rudder malfunction. On 30 January, she sank a fishing trawler by surface gunfire and damaged another in a similar action the following day. The submarine refitted at Pearl Harbor once more between 11 February and 6 March 1944, then sailed for her eighth war patrol, off Truk in the Caroline Islands. Prevented from launching attacks through most of the eighth patrol because of her assignment as lifeguard for carrier air strikes on targets in the Carolines, Finback contacted a six-ship convoy on 12 April, noting three escorts. She attacked four of the ships before a counter-attack sent her deep. On 16 April, while making a reconnaissance of Oroluk Atoll, she fired on a partially submerged steamer and a lookout tower on the atoll. Three days later, she sank one of a group of sampans, then sailed for refit at Pearl Harbor from 1 May to 30 May. Ninth, tenth and eleventh patrols During her ninth war patrol, off the Palaus and west of the Marianas, Finback again served lifeguard duty as her primary mission during plane strikes covering the opening of the Marianas operation. She returned to Majuro on 21 July for refit, then sailed on 16 August on her tenth war patrol under the command of Lieutenant Commander Robert Russell Williams, Jr., and was assigned to lifeguard duty in the Bonins. Guided by friendly aircraft, she rescued a total of five naval aviators, one very close inshore off Chichi Jima. Watchman Torpedoman First Class Donnet Kohler pulled out a tall lanky young pilot who would