USS Scamp, a 1525-ton Gato class submarine built at the Portsmouth Navy Yard, Kittery, Maine, was commissioned in mid-September 1942. Early the next year she went to the Pacific to join the war against Japan, beginning her first war patrol in March 1943. Suffering from the then all too common torpedo problems, she sank no ships on this cruise, though two were damaged. A second patrol, through the Central Pacific in April-June, cost the enemy the seaplane tender Kamikawa Maru and ended at Brisbane, Australia, which would be Scamp's base for the rest of 1943. During that time she finished three more war patrols and began another, all into the Bismarck Sea area, sinking a Japanese submarine in July, a cargo ship in September and another in November. She also badly damaged the light cruiser Agano.

In January 1944, during her sixth war patrol, Scamp torpedoed and sank a large tanker. Following a quick refit at Milne Bay, New Guinea, she went to the area between New Guinea and the southern Philippines for another combat cruise. This one nearly ended her career, as on 7 April she was near-missed by a bomb that caused serious shock damage, started fires and temporarily caused loss of power and depth control. After a very tense time for her crew, Scamp was able to leave the area and proceed to an advanced base for emergency repairs. The submarine then went back to the U.S. for a major overhaul. She was ordered to the waters east of Japan for her eighth patrol, leaving Pearl Harbor in mid-October 1944, and was last heard from on 9 November. Postwar Japanese records indicate that Scamp may have been sunk by air and escort ship attacks on 11 November, but it is also possible that she hit a mine. More than eighty officers and men were lost with her.