Did anyone ever stress out and need to get out of submarines?

During the war, there are a few instances of sailors stressing out when under attack. However, they were surprisingly few considering the stress of being depth charged.

In a few cases, the sailor might start yelling or trying to open a hatch to get out. In these cases, he would be forcibly subdued and then sedated. He might have to be knocked unconscious to render him quiet. He would usually remain sedated until returning to port. In a few other cases, the sailors froze and became very withdrawn, almost catatonic. In those cases, they might simply be relieved of their duties and replaced.

Sub sailors almost never stressed out just by being submerged. There are very few, if any, cases like this in the literature. After all, he had volunteered to be under water. If someone thought there was a chance he might be claustrophobic, he wasn’t likely to volunteer for submarines in the first place.

That said, the policy was that a sailor could always “non-vol” and leave submarines. It would be reasonable to expect interviews to be sure that was really what he wanted to do. After all, the Navy has invested time and money in his submarine training.