[razark]

Originally Posted by TheBeast

Historically there was not many Merchant ships sunk from War start to late 1942. This may have been because Merchant Raiding was not really accepted by the US Submarine Commanders until late 1942 or early 1943 time period rather then lack of target availability. The order was given within hours of the Pearl Harbor attack. to attack any Japanese ships but Sub Commanders, more often then not, did not actively hunt merchant shipping in the early war time period. There are several sources that can confirm this.
ALL ship logs I have seen online have been doctored. These online logs only show patrol highlights and are missing days and even weeks at a time from the logs and I know that the ship log is updated when anything happens, even when Parker farts. Every Dive/Surface Date/Time, amount of time surfaced, amount of time submerged, course change, contact etc. is logged.

The commanders during the opening months of the war were also trained with pre-war doctrine. These were the guys who were trained with submarines being thought of as scouting units, to remain hidden. I've read accounts that during training, a commander that allowed his scope to be seen during an attack was quite likely to be relieved of his command. They were trained to make completely submerged attacks based on sonar data, which did not lead to much, if any, success.

After these commanders started moving up, or were relieved for lack of success, etc., they were replaced by younger officers. The younger officers were less ingrained with the "hide, don't get spotted" mentality. They were more aggressive, more willing to take risks, more willing to do what needed to be done to sink enemy ships.

In addition, as the war developed, so did intelligence gathering. The commanders were better able to predict where to find the targets. Furthermore, the later commanders built upon what success the earlier commanders had. They had been the junior officers on early patrols. They had seen what worked, and what didn't. They had the benefit of trying new things, because they knew the old methods weren't bringing in the tonnage. They knew how different a war patrol was from a training cruise. Those in command at the beginning of the war only knew peacetime operations.

However, I'm sure the pre-war commanders did have some of the aversion to merchant raiding you mentioned. The fleet boats were designed, built, and trained for a completely different mission. While the boats were capable of their new missions, it took some time for the men to adjust to it.

Try this book for a look at some of these issues. It covers the early patrols of the Wahoo, before Morton took command. It discusses the problems the younger officers had with the commander, and how things changed when Morton took over.