Capturing the U-505 German Submarine in
World War II
It turned out to be a real adventure when we visited the Museum of Science+Industry
in Chicago to explore the capture of the
U-505 German Submarine during World War II.
Would we find a way to stop the devastation the U-Boats were creating on
our supply ships crossing the Atlantic?
Would we capture a U-Boat before its crew could blow it up? What would be find that would help us end the
war?
No expense has been spared to provide answers
to those and other questions by the use of a remarkable collection of archival
film footage, 200 artifacts and interviews and testimony from the survivors,
including the German captain of the sub.
We started down a hallway covered with newspaper headlines about the
start of the war and the ongoing battles.
Charts indicated the number of merchant ships sunk each year, peaking in
1942 with 1,150 ships sent to the bottom of the Atlantic. The subs were working in wolf packs. England
was on the verge of starvation. The subs
had to be stopped.
A diorama of survivors of a ship sunk by a German
U-Boat
The Allies had to coordinate their various forces and a central office
was developed that took messages from the air, the ground and naval forces.
With antisubmarine intelligence, electronic
tracking and attack aircraft we set up our own Hunter-Killer Task Groups.
One of the visuals is a life- sized hologram of six people in a central
control center gathering details and putting together an organized approach
that led them to a sub off the coast of Africa that destroyers and attack
planes surrounded.
The wolf pack hunters had now become the hunted.
Another large display with two ships' officers watching a large screen
that shows the film taken at that time of the subs capture. We see the dropping of a special explosive that
will damage but not sink a sub but would bring it to the surface.
It works and later we get to watch the members of the destroyer's crew
go aboard the sub to get papers, maps and anything else that will tell us about
Germany's war plans.
There is considerable danger because of the 14 timed explosives that
should have been set. Fortunately for
the American sailors it had all happened so quickly there was not time to set
them to explode. Instead a sea strainer cover had been opened and water was
rushing in. The cover was put back on.
The sailors who went about the sinking U-Boat 505 and rescued
the Enigma coding machine
Sacks of materials were taken off, but most important was the capture of
the German M4 enigma coding machine.
This was to be a gift without price, since now the Allies could decode
German messages.
To do this we needed to keep secret the capture of U-Boat and lead the
Germans to believe it had been sunk and all of the crew killed.
Only one German died, the others were all taken to a secret prison camp
in Louisiana. The boat itself was towed
to Bermuda without being discovered by
the Germans.
One display shows how the captured German crew tried to send messages
out that they were still alive, but fortunately failed.
At the end of the tour a film
showed these sailors meeting with their families who had believed they were
dead . Being captured probably kept them from being killed because once the
Allied forces got its act together, 70% of the German subs were sunk.
The U-505 has been reconditioned and is in great
condition. Tours can be taken through
it.
The U-505 has been reconditioned and looks in marvelous condition. Tours are available for an extra charge, but
so much is going on around the boat that the interior tour is not really
necessary. We had taken the interior
tour shortly after the boat was moved to Chicago.
The children visitors were getting a real thrill using the material on
exhibition. Enigma machines were on
display along with a screen on which the visitor could code and decode
messages. The living quarters were there
to see what the sleeping and eating arrangements were on board. Periscopes were available to use.
Toward the end of the exhibition a film from 1964 is shown of interviews
with the German Captain Harald Lange of the U-Boat and Admiral Dan Gallery who
had captured him. They had become
friends in the interim.
So much more can be seen. If you
are interested in World War II, this is a must see for the vast archives and
artifacts that have been drawn on to make this excellent exhibition.
Visitors can operate some of the submarine equipment
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