The Enemy Below

Chicago is one town I would never live in, but I'm glad I was there at least once.

In July of 2001, just 2 months before 9/11, I was attending one of our annual Khe Sanh, 3rd Marine Division Re-Unions, and this particular year's meetup was in Chicago.

Our re-unions usually run 4 or 5 days, with all kinds of different activities, plus a lot of "free time." At THIS "meet-up", I was especially looking forward to the "free time," because I'm a World War II buff....this was Chicago, where the Museum of Science & History holds one of the war's most unique treasures, the German U-Boat, the U-505. It was the first enemy "man o' war" to be captured and boarded by our navy since the war of 1812.

Depth-charged off the coast of Africa in 1944, her Captain brought it up to the surface, rather than lose the boat and all of its crew. Standard procedure for the German Navy was....in a case like this.....to open the scuttling valves and set the "explosive charges" before abandoning ship.

They opened up the seacock to allow sea water to start flowing in and sinking the submarine, but in their haste to get OUT, no one thought to set the bomb timer. OUR guys sent a launch out to the sub, passing all of those German seaman floating around in the water. They had orders to CAPTURE this boat if they could.

They knew they had to work fast, if they were to get the seacock valve closed off in time to keep it from sinking, and dismantling the charge to keep it from blowing itself up.

The first sailors to hurry down the ladder inside the conning tower had no idea of what to expect. There might even be some German sailors down there ready to start shooting people. But there was no one.

One of our guys FOUND the seacock out shut it off, stopping the water flow, although by now, the stern was partially underwater. They found the explosive charge-----never set. Immediately, the German sailors and their captain were taken aboard the jeep carrier Guadalcanal. All maps, charts and documents were removed for the "505" were taken aboard the Guadalcanal as well....along with the ENIGMA Code Machine that every NAZI U-Boat carried. THIS WAS HUGE!

They put a few of OUR guys on the sub, hooked a steel tow cable to it, and headed back to America with it. While in tow, OUR guys were able to get the sub's propellers turning fast enough to work the bilge pumps....which allowed them to punp OUT all the water the Germans had let IN, and the U-505 was now riding LEVEL on the water, making it even easier to tow back now.

Every American sailor was made to sign a statement of absolute secrecy about this, under threat of being shot. it was important that Berlin just assumed that the 505 had been sunk. If word got out that it had been CAPTURED, they'd know that WE had one of their Enigma machines, charts and codebooks, and they'd have IMMEDIATELY radioed to the rest of the wolf packs to CHANGE all of their set-ups.

When we got the submarine back to "OUR GARAGE" (via bermuda), we interned the German prsioners to special camps in Canada, where they were treated well, but were NOT allowed to write any letters to their families back home. This might sound a little cruel, but secrecy of this submarine capture was VITAL to our war effort.

As far as Berlin knew......the U-505 was lost at sea.

The U-505 turned out to be even BIGGER than originally thought. Not only did we have their Enigma machine, codebooks and charts, but the U-Boat was ALSO carrying Germany's newest "accoustical" torpedos, which once launched, could "hone-in" on the propeller wake of a surface ship, and score a hit in the foulest of weather or the darkest of night.

German technology was HUGE in the 40's and these torpedos were a GIANT capture!

We also had the submarine ITSELF, which OUR crews culd now TRAIN on, and develop counter-measures for our own use. The Germans never knew we had ANY of this until after the war. Hard to keep a secret among so many people involved, but we did.

After the war, the 505 was taken to the Navy Yard at Portsmouth, New Hampshire to await final disposition, where it sat for several years, until the U.S. Navy decided it should be towed out to sea and sunk.

Captain Daniel Gallery, under whose command it was captured, felt it was too significant of a prize to just sink. In 1954, Gallery, who's HOME was Chicago, got up enough donatons from the public to pay for the costs of moving to Chicago for a permanent display......if only OUR Navy would release it.

They did......and under its own power, the U-505 was sailed down the St. Lawrence Seaway, out across Lake Michigan and on into Chicago, where it was dry-docked until it could be moved and winched, inch-by-inch to the Museum of Science & Industry, that sits just off the shoreline of Lake Michigan.

When I saw it and took the tour inside of it, it was sitting outside of the museum. Today, it has been moved INSIDE in the museum, out of the elements.

In Part II to follow......I'll tell you about the INSIDE, as I saw and photographed it. If you're ever in Chicago, it is MORE THAN WORTH THE TIME to go see it.