On the night of 29 December 1942, "Thresher" (now in the hands of William J. "Moke" Millican, Class of 1928) made contact with a 3,000-ton freighter. Just before midnight, she fired a spread of torpedoes at the cargo ship, but all missed or ran too deep. Undaunted, she waited for the moonrise and then surfaced to use her deck gun. Outmaneuvering the enemy, who tried to ram her, "Thresher" scored eight hits in succession with her main gun, where her target probably sank in the shallow water, one of the few sunk entirely by deck guns.