Екінші дүниежүзілік соғыстағы "Гато" кластың суасты қайығы

Gato class submarine from World War II

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On her return to Brisbane on 5 December, Lieutenant Commander James W. Blanchard replaced Hagberg in command. Albacore departed Australia on 26 December to patrol north of the Bismarck Islands. On 12 January 1944, she sank Choko Maru with two separate torpedo attacks. Two days later, in company with Scamp and Guardfish, she blew up Japanese destroyer Sazanami (flushed by Guardfish) with four torpedoes from her stern tubes. Another destroyer attacked Albacore with fifty nine depth charges, leaving Scamp and Guardfish free to pursue the three tankers; they succeeded in sinking one each. Following more than a fortnight of uneventful patrolling, the submarine headed home. She made brief fuel stops at Tulagi and Midway Island before reaching Pearl Harbor on 22 February. After three days of repairs to get her ready for the voyage, Albacore continued on to the Mare Island Navy Yard in Vallejo, California for overhaul.

Albacore left Mare Island on 5 May 1944 and held training exercises with USS Shad en route to Hawaii. Albacore reached Pearl Harbor on 13 May and spent the next two weeks on final repairs and training. Albacore began her ninth patrol on 29 May, and was assigned waters west of the Mariana Islands and around the Palau Islands. In the next few days, she made only one contact, a Japanese convoy on 11 June. Before the submarine could maneuver into attack position, a Japanese aircraft forced her to dive and lose contact.

On the morning of 18 June, two days after American forces began landing on Saipan, Albacore shifted from her position west of the Mariana Islands to 100 mile (161 km) further south. Admiral Charles A. Lockwood (ComSubPac) ordered this move in the hope of enabling the submarine to intercept a Japanese task force (under command of Admiral Jisaburō Ozawa) reportedly steaming from Tawi Tawi toward Saipan. At about 0800 the next morning, Albacore raised her periscope and found herself in the midst of Ozawa's main carrier group. Blanchard allowed one Japanese carrier to pass by and selected a second one for his target. Once inside , the submarine's Torpedo Data Computer started giving false information. To maximize the odds of a hit, Blanchard fired all six bow tubes. The carrier was in the process of launching an air strike, and one of the pilots (Sakio Komatsu) intentionally dove his plane into a torpedo, setting it off early. Three Japanese destroyers immediately charged Albacore. While the submarine was diving to escape, her crew heard one solid torpedo explosion. About that same time, 25 depth charges began raining down on the submarine. Then Blanchard heard "a distant and persistent explosion of great force" followed by another. No one on Albacore thought Taihō had sunk, and her skipper was angry for "missing a golden opportunity." After this action, Albacore was assigned lifeguard duty for planes striking Yap and Ulithi. On 2 July, Albacore shifted over to intercept traffic between Yap and the Palau Islands. The submarine spotted a wooden inter island steamer loaded with Japanese civilians. Albacore decided to stage a surface gun attack. After ensuring the ship was afire, Albacore dived to avoid an airplane. The submarine surfaced soon thereafter and picked up five survivors. The sunken vessel was the Taimei Maru from Yap to Palau. Albacore put into Majuro on 15 July. She was praised for an aggressive patrol and received credit for damaging a Shōkaku class carrier. American codebreakers had lost track of Taihō after the Battle of the Philippine Sea and, while puzzled, did not realize she had gone down. Only months later did a prisoner of war reveal her sinking. After a refit alongside Bushnell, the submarine began her tenth patrol on 8 August. Her assignment was the Bungo Suido Kii Suido area. During this period, Albacore was credited with sinking two Japanese vessels, an 880 ton cargo ship Shingetau Maru on 5 September and the 170 ton Submarine Chaser #165 on 11 September. The patrol ended at Pearl Harbor on 25 September.

Albacore left Pearl Harbor on 24 October 1944, topped up her fuel tanks at Midway Island on 28 October, and was never heard from again. On 21 December, Albacore was presumed lost with all hands. Her name was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 30 March 1945. According to Japanese records obtained after the war, a submarine (presumed to be Albacore) struck a naval mine very close to the shore off northeastern Hokkaidō on 7 November 1944. A Japanese patrol boat witnessed the explosion of a submerged submarine and saw a great deal of heavy oil, cork, bedding, and food supplies rise to the surface.

On 25 May 2022, a Japanese team led by Dr. Tamaki Ura of the University of Tokyo began a search for the wreck of Albacore off Hokkaidō in waters about east of Hakodate. During the day, the team's sonar detected what appeared to be a submarine hull in length on the seabed at a depth of .