I followed your advice and headed towards Honshu. About 20 days into my patrol (after a rather inconvenient cargo shipment to the Philippines) I found two merchants, which I sank (the second one took no less than three torpedoes, as the crew refused to abandon it even though she had stopped and her entire bow was under the water).
On the trip back home, I made the huge mistake of radioing Pac informing of my situation. They had the bright idea of sending me further north. After doubting a while, I chose to head there to avoid the renown hit, do the minimum patrol time and head back. Shortly after completing the objective, I spotted a DD, too close for comfort, that I hadn't seen before because of the weather. I crash dived and ducked under the thermal layer as fast as I could, but the guy got lucky and damaged my hull on my way down. I blew ballast to stop diving immediately, but being hit by a charge at 150 feet is not something a S-Boat can take easily. As soon as the flood was under control, a new leak appeared, and a new one after that one. It wasn't long before I was having tea with Davy Jones.
Moral of the story, if you think you have already pushed your S-Boat's luck too far, head back home and keep radio silence. It seems there's somebody in ComSubPac who thinks my S-Boat is a souped-up Gato or something :P
I'll have to start a new career tomorrow and be more careful.
Still, amazing experience. TMaru really makes a difference here.
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