The U-505

During World War II, American and allied forces were delivering food and supplies by boat to troops fighting the Germans in Britain. The Germans began using submarines (U-boats) to attack those boats in an attempt to force the British to surrender. (These subs sank about 5,000 ships during the war!) Soon the boats started traveling in convoys of up to 200 merchant ships with military destroyers protecting them. I just found out my grandfather, Wayne, was aboard one of those destroyers during the war! A “Hunter- Killer Task Force" was created to seek out and destroy the German U boats. Hitler responded by sending the U-boats out in groups called “wolfpacks” to attack the convoys. One particular day the largest wolfpack, 40 U-boats strong, attacked 2 convoys of 100 ships and sank 21 of the merchant supply boats.

Only one U-boat was ever captured, the U-505 that is on display here at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry!

In June 1944 the US Navy attacked the U-505, it submerged but the damage had been done. The command was made for the Germans to sink the sub and abandon ship. A Navy party of eight men bravely boarded the sub to locate and disarm the fourteen bombs, apprehend any remaining Germans and save the sinking sub from falling to the bottom of the ocean! The Germans had opened this valve to take on water and sink the sub, but fortunately they didn't throw the lid overboard and the boarding party was able to seal it back up in time. It was a very dramatic sequence of events that you can read more about here. 

Fifty-eight prisoners were taken back to a camp in Louisiana until the war ended in 1945. The US broke Geneva convention and didn't report the prisoners to the Red Cross because the intel that was found, code books, enigma machines and technology of the sub itself, were critical to keep quiet for the sake of the war. If the Germans knew the sub had been captured, they would have changed course and codes. 

The enigma machine used 3 separate types of settings that changed daily, so cracking the codes were extremely difficult, but that changed once they had code books and the machines in their possession.

This is where they cooked meals for all 50-some men on board! 

They had 30 bunks for almost 60 men. The sleeping compartment was the coolest of the boat at around 95 degrees. A man coming off his shift would wake the man sleeping for his shift to start and climb in for his turn to sleep. This was called sleeping "hot bunks" because it's still hot from the guy before you.

Outside of the sub are some fantastic interactive displays to help you understand different aspects of the sub. Here Journey is learning how the U-505 could be traveling on top of the water and suddenly submerge with their special tanks along the sides of the sub. The amount of air or water in those tanks determine how deep the sub will sink.

We used these simulated enigma machines to encode and also decode messages after "setting" our enigma machine's three settings to match the encryption key.

Trying out the periscope. 

Moving the sub was an enormous fete. This meant towing it 3,000 miles from New Hampshire thru all four great lakes, thru 28 locks and finally 800 feet across land to bring it into the museum. Here's a fun time-lapse video of how that happened. Some great photos of the capture and move are here.