[Nisgeis]

Paraphrased from 'Silent Victory' by Clay Blair Jr.

The boats went out with orders to proceed with extreme caution, as no one knew what the Japanese technology was like and there were also likely to be subs on route. When within 500 miles of an air base, they were to remain submerged in daytime. Nights they were to run on only one enginer to conserve fuel. They were only meant to use one or two torpedoes per target, as there was a shortage of them.

After the first patrols were completed, there were various criticisms of the patrols. They took too long to get on station, as they were too cautious and dived too often. One skipper was criticised for following pre war doctrine of a sonar only attack and it was suggested that it should have been a night periscope attack, or even a surface night attack. I tihnk, but don't recall where I saw it, that the Gudgeon's first patrol lasted 51 days and only 12 were spent submerged.

These comments, called endorsements were added to patrol reports and were circulated to all sub skippers and this was the way that current policy was published - as criticism or encouragement of actions on patrol. It was clear to those who received the reports that the current policy had drastically changed in a very short period of time.