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Upon completion of refit on 28 May 1945, Bonefish got underway in company with Tunny (SS-282) and Skate (SS-305), as part of "Pierce's Polecats", commanded by Tunny's skipper, Commander George E. Pierce. Equipped with a new mine-detecting device, the submarines were ordered to penetrate the Sea of Japan to sever the last of the Japanese overseas supply lines. Bonefish successfully threaded her way through the minefields by Tsushima Island as she transited the Korea Strait to enter the Sea of Japan for an offensive patrol off the west central coast of Honshû.
During a rendezvous with Tunny on 16 June, Bonefish reported sinking Oshikayama Maru, a 6,892-ton cargo ship. In a second rendezvous on 18 June, she requested and received permission to conduct a daylight submerged patrol of Toyama Wan, a bay farther up the Honshû coast. The attack group was to depart the Sea of Japan via La Perouse Strait on the night of 24 June. Bonefish did not make the scheduled pre-transit rendezvous. Still, Tunny waited in vain off Hokkaidô until the 27th. On 30 July, Bonefish was presumed lost.
Japanese records reveal that the 5,488-ton cargo ship Konzan Maru was torpedoed and sunk in Toyama Wan on 19 June and that an ensuing severe counterattack by Japanese escorts, the Okinawa, CD-63, CD-75, CD-158 and CD-207, brought debris and a major oil slick to the water's surface. There can be little doubt that Bonefish was sunk in this action.
The U.S. Submarine Veterans of World War II assigned USS Bonefish (SS-223) to the State of Washington.
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