USS Salmon, first of a class of six 1435-ton submarines, was built at Groton, Connecticut. Commissioned in March 1938, she operated in the western Atlantic until late 1939, when she went to the Pacific. Salmon was based on the west coast in 1940 and most of 1941, then shifted to the Philippines, where she was stationed when war began with Japan on 7 December 1941. After her initial war patrol in Philippines and East Indies waters, her base moved to Australia, from which she conducted the next four war patrols in the East Indies, South China Sea, Indochina and Philippines areas during February-December 1942. In the course of her third and fifth patrols she sank three ships, totalling 21,300 tons.

Salmon completed her fifth war patrol at Pearl Harbor. After a west coast overhaul, she made her sixth war patrol off Japan in April-June 1943. Her seventh patrol, in the northwestern Pacific during July and August, cost the enemy a 2500-ton ship. The submarine's eighth and ninth patrols, into Japanese waters in September 1943 - February 1944, produced no sinkings. There were also no sinkings on her tenth, during April and May, but that patrol produced valuable photographic intelligence on enemy bases in the Caroline Islands.

Following another overhaul, Salmon began her eleventh war patrol in September 1944. Operating as part of a "wolf pack" against Japanese shipping, she torpedoed and damaged a tanker but was seriously hurt in the ensuing depth charge attack. Forced to surface, she aggressively attacked the enemy escort ships with her deck guns, driving them off. She escaped the combat area with little additional damage. Her crew received the Presidential Unit Citation for their heroism during this action.

Now showing her age and the lingering results of her depth charging, Salmon saw no further fighting. She transited the Panama Canal to the Atlantic, arriving in February 1945 and spending the rest of the war in overhaul and training service. USS Salmon decommissioned in September 1945 and was scrapped in April 1946.