Sand Lance was a Balao-class submarine, SS-381. Portsmouth Naval Shipyard laid her down on 12 March 1943. Mrs. Edith Burrows sponsored her at the launch on 25 June 1943, and the Navy commissioned her at Portsmouth on 9 October 1943. Malcolm E. Garrison had her from that day.
uboat.net records that on 3 March 1944 she accidentally sank the Soviet freighter Belorussia. No position is recorded for that sinking.
On the night of 12–13 March an airplane forced her down. She came up in a convoy. The light cruiser Tatsuta and the transport Kokuyo Maru went down. Tatsuta sank that afternoon, about 40 miles west-southwest of Hachijo-jima, and twenty-six of her men were killed. Sand Lance then took about a hundred depth charges over about sixteen hours. She reached Pearl Harbor on 23 April 1944. A Presidential Unit Citation covers that first patrol.
She was decommissioned on 14 February 1946. She was recommissioned at Pearl Harbor on 6 April 1963 and transferred to Brazil on 7 September 1963 as Rio Grande do Sul.