Did they do anything other than attacking enemy ships?

There certainly were other missions for these submarines. Submarines were very versatile ships. The fact that they could submerge and approach an assignment without being seen made them the best vessel for many other types of missions.

One of the more common missions was what was called “lifeguard duty.” Early in the war, someone suggested that submarines might be used to rescue our airmen whose planes were damaged in attacks on Japanese bases. Tests were successful and in 1943 we began to put submarines near Japanese bases when our aircraft attacked. Submarine captains did not like lifeguard duty. They thought they should have been out sinking ships rather than hanging around on the surface in dangerous waters for a few days at a time. Naturally, the aviators had a different view.

Pilots were told that, if they could not safely get back to their carriers or bases, they should try to get close to the submarines. There they would have to get out of their planes. They could ditch (crash land in the water) or bail out of the plane. If they couldn’t get close to the boats, the subs would try to come to them. It was helpful if a wingman could circle over the downed pilot for protection and to direct the submarine to the aviator.

Lifeguard operations were very successful. Over the course of the war in the Pacific, our submarines rescued more than 500 airmen. The most famous rescued airman was a young LTJG torpedo bomber pilot by the name of George Herbert Walker Bush. He was rescued by the USS Finback in September of 1944 off the island of Chichi Jima. His crewman had been killed, and Mr. Bush was in the water for about 30 minutes before being rescued. The result was that submarines were responsible for two American presidents. (George W. Bush wasn’t born until 1947.)

Pampanito did lifeguard duty on her first war patrol near Yap Island. This was during the build-up to the invasion of the Mariana Islands. However, no pilots needed assistance from Pampanito on that mission.

Other assignments included:

1. Intelligence gathering, which is still one of the primary missions of our submarines. In some cases, during WW2, we needed better charts (maps). As part of their patrols, we sent submarines to certain areas to fill in gaps in our knowledge. In other cases, we needed information about the movements of Japanese ships. The most famous examples of these were the Battles of Midway, The Philippine Sea and Leyte Gulf. Submarines were able to provide critical information for our fleet and, sometimes, sink a couple enemy ships before the big battles.
2. Rescue of the crews of our four submarines that had run aground.
3. Insertion, resupply and extraction of coast watchers or guerillas on isolated islands in the Pacific. In a few instances, submarines inserted raiding parties onto Japanese held islands. Later in the war, this became more common for boats stationed at Fremantle, Australia. Commandoes there were anxious to carry out these raids, and found a sympathetic ear in Admiral Christie, then commander of submarines in the Southwest Pacific. Caution was the order of the day and there were concerns about intelligence losses. Many of the raids were successful.
4. Shelling of Japanese installations. We originally had three older submarines with two six-inch guns each, the USS Argonaut (SS-166), USS Narwhal (SS-167) and USS Nautilus (SS-168) and they could be more effective on these missions. The USS Barb (SS-220), under the command of Gene Fluckey, had rocket launchers installed for one patrol and attacked factories, a communications hub and a shipyard which built wooden transports. The hub was hit and the factories and shipyard were duly set ablaze.
5. Barb was also responsible for a very creative commando style attack which destroyed a train and did serious damage to the railroad track. The train was added to the Barb’s battle flag.
6. Minelaying. Any submarine could have been used for these missions, but the size of the Argonaut, Nautilus and Narwhal allowed them to be more effective at this task.
7. Shortly after the war started, we sent a couple of submarines to the Philippines with ammunition for MacArthur and his troops. One of the boats, the USS Trout (SS-202), then took much of the gold and silver from the Philippine treasury off the islands to safety in the U. S. This resulted in a humorous story when the inventory at Pearl Harbor came up one gold brick short. The brick was found in the galley, where the cook was using it as a paperweight holding his cookbooks open. The cook proclaimed his innocence, saying that he didn’t realize what the brick was. (Of course, he didn’t!)