The chest is definitely used during freestyle. So are the lats, your large back muscles. Your chest is responsible for more pushing type motions, while your lats are more for pulling. The catch and pull phase of your stroke is kind of a combination of both motions and recruits both muscle groups.

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Long Chile was a silly place.

I hardly ever feel my lats. Chest/tris/delts are certainly the 3 that seem to be taking the abuse. Maybe a very small amount of my lats are fatigued after a "long" swim but it almost feels like more rear delt than my lats. Certainly not the section of the lat that is near the rib cage.

Are there any relatively fast swimmers at your pool??? If so, ask one of them to look at your stroke.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

unfortunately no, I seems to be the fastest swimmer whenever I am in the pool. That is not saying much though haha downside of swimming at 24hour fitness. I guess the next best thing would be to get one of the aqua joggers to shoot a video

Probably a few reasons for that:

1)Your lats are large and strong. Your delts and Tris are smaller, weaker, and tire faster which is why you feel them more.

2) your technique may not be great, putting unnecessary strain on those smaller muscle groups instead of engaging the larger ones more. I swim at night, and go to the gym early the next morning. My shoulders are definitely sore from the swim, but, I really notice the fatigue in my lats when doing pull ups .

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Long Chile was a silly place.

Is there a specific drills I can do to help take away the stress from those muscle groups and direct it towards the larger muscle groups? More paddle work? more pull buoy? Or just getting some footage first and seeing where im doing the stroke wrong?

There are two things that come to mind (but could be other things too, these are just low hanging fruit I can think of):

Better body rotation side to side. If you're not rolling enough, you will be working your shoulders harder during the recovery of your stroke to get your arm out of the water move it forward to catch again.

Look at your catch and start of your pull. This should be where most of your lat use comes in. I would focus on thinking of your hand and forearm as your paddle or oar, and using your lats to push that paddle back towards your hips.

There are plenty of YouTube videos you can look up for visuals of what you should be doing. Compare that to footage of what you actually are doing, and that would be a start.

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Long Chile was a silly place.

Awesome thank you! Ill get someone to tape me this week and go from there

After working with a coach and focusing on rotation, I definitely started feeling it the most in my lats. I am a new and horrible swimmer, but do the best when I focus on engaging my lats and rolling just a bit before I pull. It seems to take pressure off my arm doing it this way.

you're probably under-rotating

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

Ill try to focus bit more on that! Thanks!

Alright, besides getting some footage I will put more effort into that!

I often notice I feel it more in my triceps/deltoids if I'm letting my elbow drop. Usually I find longer pull sets with a buoy and snorkel are the best way for me to focus on keeping my elbow high.

Dropped elbow...that's what I was thinking too. Dropped elbow/leading the pull with the elbow would target the shoulder muscles more than the lats.