Admiral William Halsey's Third Fleet had engaged off Cape Engaño. On the night of 25 October, Jallao made radar contact with bomb-damaged light cruiser fleeing from Halsey. Pintado closed the scene with Jallao but held her fire while her sister submarine attacked, ready to join in if needed. Jallao launched seven torpedoes, and Tama broke up and went to the bottom, the last cruiser to go down in the Battle off Cape Engaño. A bonus came on 3 November when Pintados periscope revealed "the largest enemy ship we have ever seen", apparently an oiler in the support group for the Japanese carriers. Clarey fired six bow torpedoes at the huge target, but enemy destroyer deliberately crossed their path to intercept the torpedoes before they could reach their target. The destroyer disintegrated in a tremendous explosion which provided an effective smoke screen protecting the original target until the two remaining Japanese escorts forced the submarine to dive and withdraw to escape exploding depth charges.Pintado joined on 14 November and escorted the damaged submarine to Saipan, arriving Tanapag Harbor five days later. After a week in port, she resumed her war patrol south of Takao. On the night of 12 December – 13 December, she sank two enemy landing craft, Transport No. 12 and Transport No. 104, and claimed she had sunk a third, Transport No. 106, but apparently missed. Two days later she headed for Australia and arrived Brisbane on New Year's Day 1945. She won the Presidential Unit Citation for extraordinary skill and heroism on her first three war patrols. Fourth–sixth patrols, January – August 1945 The veteran submarine departed Brisbane 27 January but found no targets as she patrolled the Singapore-Saigon shipping lanes. Throughout the patrol, she played hide and go seek with Japanese aircraft and, on 20 February, barely escaped when a plane appeared from the clouds and dropped two depth charges which jarred the submarine. She made temporary repairs and continued to patrol until returning to Fremantle 30 March.Pintado sailed to Pearl Harbor before getting underway 1 June for her fifth war patrol on lifeguard station for bomber raids on Tokyo. On 26 June, just south of Honshū, a smoking B-29 bomber, the City of Galveston, crossed her bow at about , dropped a dozen parachutes, crashed into the sea and exploded. In less than an hour the submarine had rescued the entire crew which she took