| abstract | - USS Robalo (SS-273), a Gato-class submarine, was the only ship of the United States Navy to be named for the róbalo or common snook. Her keel was laid down on 24 October 1942 by the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company at Manitowoc, Wisconsin. She was launched on 9 May 1943, sponsored by Mrs. E.S. Root, and commissioned on 28 September 1943. After passage by inland waterways and being floated down the Mississippi River, Robalo deployed to the Pacific. On her first war patrol (under the leadership of Commander Stephen Ambruster, Annapolis Class of 1928), she sortied from Pearl Harbor, hunting Japanese ships west of the Philippines. There, en route to her new station in Fremantle, she damaged a large freighter, firing four torpedoes at . She spent 36 of her 57-day mission submerged. When she arrived, her commanding officer was summarily relieved by Admiral Christie and replaced with Manning Kimmel (Class of 1935). In March 1944, Christie (based on Ultra) feared surprise from a strong Japanese force. When Chester W. Nimitz, Jr. in USS Haddo (SS-255), made contact on his SJ radar and reported "many large ships", Christie scrambled to respond. Robalo, along with USS Flasher (SS-249), USS Hoe (SS-258), USS Hake (SS-256), and USS Redfin (SS-272) all ran to intercept. No attack ever materialized. For her second patrol, Robalo went to the South China Sea, assigned to interdict Japanese tanker traffic from French Indochina to the fleet anchorage at Tawi Tawi. On a "wildly aggressive patrol" lasting 51 days, Robalo fired twenty torpedoes in four attacks. She was bombed by a Japanese antisubmarine aircraft, suffering shattered and flooded periscopes and loss of radar, while taking a harrowing plunge to after her main induction was improperly closed (a casualty frighteningly reminiscent of Squalus) in diving to escape. When she returned to Fremantle, Captain "Tex" McLean (commanding Subron 16) and Admiral Christie both considered relieving Robalo's skipper for his own safety. She was credited with sinking a 7500-ton tanker which was not confirmed postwar by JANAC. Robalo departed Fremantle on 22 June 1944 on her third war patrol. She set a course for the South China Sea to conduct her patrol in the vicinity of the Natuna Islands. After transiting Makassar Strait and Balabac Strait (which was well-known to be mined), she was scheduled to arrive on station about 6 July and remain until dark on 2 August 1944. On 2 July, a contact report stated Robalo had sighted a Fusō-class battleship, with air cover and two destroyers for escort, just east of Borneo. No other messages were ever received from the submarine and when she did not return from patrol, she was presumed lost.
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