overly aggressive, and submarine commander Herber "Tex" McLean commented on Robalo's patrol, "Anybody else would have come home long before. I worried that Kimmel was a little too anxious to put the name of Kimmel high in Navy annals." But not only was Kimmel the son of the former commander of the Pacific Fleet, he was also the nephew of Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid, so Christie took no action. Repairs, however, were eventually made, and when they were complete, Kimmel was ordered to take Robalo to Indochina via the Balabac Strait, separating Palawan and Borneo. Christie had received reports of Japanese minefields in the Balabac Strait, but a number of submarines, including Robalo on her first patrol, successfully transited the body of water. Kimmel had received information about the minefields and was given instructions how to safely navigate the area. On July 3, 1944, Robalo received an Ultra communiqué, and attempted to intercept a Fuso-class battleship. Kimmel sent off a contact report, which was the last message ever received from him. On the night of July 26, while on the surface, Robalo apparently strayed off course, struck a mine and sank. An unknown number of survivors, possibly as many as seven, managed to make it ashore on Palawan. But before they could make contact with Filipino guerrillas, they were captured by Japanese forces. The prisoners were taken to Puerto Princesa prison camp where, a few days later, one of the survivors passed a note out of a cell window. The note was retrieved by a U.S. Army prisoner who was on a work detail. The note was eventually smuggled to the wife of a guerrilla leader, Dr. Mendoza, who then forwarded the information to Admiral Ralph Christie. Ultimately, none of the crew members survived; some or all of them may have been murdered by the Japanese or perished while being transported to a different location. It has been proposed that some of the Robalo survivors were taken aboard one or more destroyers sometime around August 15. The exact fate of the 4 survivors is unknown. Admiral Christie informed the Kimmel family at the time that Manning had gone down with his ship. However, Christie confided after the war that he had received intelligence that gave a different account of Kimmel's death, an account which he intentionally withheld for the sake of the family. According to this alternative account, Kimmel survived