Cutter was Executive Officer of under LCDR Lew Parks when she left Pearl Harbor on her first war patrol on 18 December 1941, just 11 days after the Japanese attack. Only two days out of Pearl Harbor, "Pompano" was sighted by a U.S. patrol plane, which attacked, and called in dive bombers from the nearby . Three additional near-misses ruptured "Pompano"s fuel tanks and left her trailing an oil slick. Parks shook off his pursuers and pressed on to confirm the presence of Japanese troops on Wake Island. "Pompano" then continued to the Marshall Islands, where she found a 16,000-ton Japanese transport at Wotje, which was attacked with four torpedoes. Parks remained off Wotje for five more days and eventually attacked a destroyer, but his first two torpedoes detonated early.