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Career
Ordered:
Laid down:	12 January 1944
Launched:	28 May 1944
Commissioned:	14 October 1944
Fate:	Sunk by Japanese
Stricken:
General Characteristics
Displacement:	1526 tons surfaced, 2424 tons submerged
Length:	311 feet 9 inches
Beam:	27 feet 3 inches
Draft:	15 feet 3 inches
Speed:	20 knots surfaced, 8.5 knots submerged
Complement:	66 officers and men
Armament:	one five-inch gun, ten 21-inch torpedo tubes

USS Lagarto (SS-371), a Balao-class submarine, was the only ship of the United States Navy to be named for the lagarto , a lizard fish. Her keel was laid down on 12 January 1944 by the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company of Manitowoc, Wisconsin. She was launched on 28 May 1944 sponsored by Emily Taft Douglas , Congresswoman from Illinois, and later United States Senator from Illinois, and commissioned on 14 October 1944 with Commander F.D. Latta in command.

After trial tests and training in Lake Michigan, Lagarto entered a floating drydock 3 December 1944, was floated down the Mississippi River, and two days later departed New Orleans, Louisiana, for the Pacific.

Lagarto sailed from Pearl Harbor on 7 February 1945 for her maiden war patrol in waters around the Nansei Shoto. In a coordinated attack 13 February with submarines Haddock (SS-231) and Sennet (SS-408), she engaged four heavily-armed picket boats in a gun battle, sank two, and damaged the others. On 24 February, Lagarto sank small freighter Tatsumono Maru off Bungo Suido and not long afterward spotted a Japanese submarine. She torpedoed and sank Japanese submarine I-371 in a day periscope attack. Lagarto arrived at Subic Bay on 20 March.

Lagarto departed Subic Bay for the South China Sea on 12 April and late in April was directed to patrol in the Gulf of Siam, where sister ship Baya (SS-318) joined her 2 May. That afternoon Baya signaled that she was tracking a tanker traveling under heavy escort. That night Baya tried to attack but was driven off by enemy escorts equipped with radar. The two submarines met early next morning to discuss attack plans. Baya made a midnight attack but was again driven off by the unusually alert Japanese escorts. Early next morning, 4 May, when Baya tried to contact her teammate, Lagarto made no reply. Since Japanese records state that during the night of 3 May-4 May, mine layer Hatsutaka attacked an American submarine in that location, it is presumed that Lagarto perished in battle with all hands.

Lagarto received one battle star for World War II service.

References