First Career mission - Will it end?

[Greenwood]

Hello all,

Just bought SH4 few days ago and like it a lot.

I decided to start a career (1941). The mission objectives were to reach a certain area. Along the way, I ran into a couple of lonely merchants and killed them. (Wasting a few torps)

A day later (in game) I found another convoy and couldn't resist sinking some of them. I did just that, got myself a merchant. I had 3 Destoyers on me for a long time. I was feeling lucky so I decided to head up to pericope depth and found 2 destroyers right behind me - not moving - I guess they were listening - well I fired off my aft torpedo's and got both of them.

At this point I was thinking wow, I'm doing great this mission - the problem was that once I reached the objective area - I had only 4 torpedo's left. The mission objective for me was to sink merchant shipping in that area. With my 4 torpedo's left - I killed two more merchants. At this point I was no completely out of torpedo's.

The problem is that I did amazing on this first mission - but I didn't leave any torps left for AFTER I recieved the second objective to the mission.

My main question is - how long will it take for the game to complete the objective (I killed two merchants). I've been hanging around the objective area for days running out of gas and food with no end in sight.

Is it possible for me to just head home to port and the mission will automatically end? Even if I fail the mission, I just want to mission.

Thanks

GW