Cheered on by well-wishers, U-505 leaves for a war patrol to the distant Caribbean on October 4, 1942. Its new commander, Peter Zschech, stands on the conning tower above his new emblem—the battle axe.
While a watch scans the horizon for enemy aircraft, some of U-505’s crewmen lounge above decks, grateful for the chance to escape the boat’s hot, humid, and foul interior. A bearded Hans Goebeler is standing in the center of rear line. Later in the war, hunter-killer groups made these lazy days above deck impossible.
These two photos clearly convey the extensive and nearly fatal damage suffered by U-505 when a Hudson aircraft from Trinidad’s RAF 53 Squadron dropped from the clouds and deposited a depth-charge directly on the boat’s forward deck on November 10, 1942. The explosion destroyed the low-flying plane, killed its crew, and nearly sank the boat. The center of the gaping hole once held the 3.7cm cannon, which was blown overboard. Its study mount absorbed much of the force of the blast that would otherwise have sunk U-505. The crew worked frantically to enable the boat to dive to shallow depths for the trip home.
A spare torpedo in the storage tube below deck was badly in the attack. Here, members of U-505’s crew struggle to roll it overboard. Ironically, this same task was repeated 19 months later by Gallery’s salvage teams with a torpedo that was damaged during the capture of the boat.
Gottfried Stolzenburg, U-505’s unlucky II.W.O., was almost killed on the conning tower when the Hudson’s depth-charge ex- ploded. His head, rib and lung injuries required a transfer to another U-boat, where he underwent lifesaving surgery. He is shown here smiling his thanks to a comrade as he is hauled aboard U-462, a Type XIV under the command of Bruno Vowe.
U-505 pulls into the 5th T-Flotilla’s home port at Brest, France, on a cold overcast January 2, 1944, to deposit the lucky survivors (gathered here on deck) from the sunken destroyer T-25. The warship went down in the Bay of Biscay on December 28, 1943, after a battle with enemy surface ships and aircraft. (Below) T-25’s survivors are greeted by the Flotilla’s commander.
Francis S. “Frog” Low, one of Admiral King’s most trusted subordinates. Low served as chief of staff of Tenth Fleet and was later promoted to rear admiral. He successfully ran the fleet’s complex day-to-day antisubmarine effort.
Admiral Ernest J. King, Commander in Chief, United States Fleet (COMINCH). His delay in ordering ships into convoy off the American east coast in 1942 remains controversial to some historians, but his organization of anti-submarine intelligence efforts played a major role in the defeat of the U-boats.
Commander (later Captain) Kenneth A. Knowles. King called him out of retirement to run F-21.
The massive Model 1530 U. S. Navy four-rotor bombe. Operated by WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Services), these machines were built to read encrypted German transmissions. Technicians, under strict secrecy rules, built 120 bombes at the National Cash Register Company, in Dayton, Ohio.
U-505 was found off West Africa and depth-charged and driven to the surface by TG 22.3. Here it is seen wallowing in the ocean swell, heavy by the stern, as a whale boat with boarding party from USS Pillsbury approaches to board it.
Now under American control, two salvage parties labor on the afternoon of June 4, 1944, to keep U-505 afloat. Commander Earl Trosino, Guadalcanal’s chief engineer, is seen here bending over on the bridge working with his crew to get gasoline bilge pumps into operation. The stern is completely submerged and only a small amount of dry deck was available on the bow, so salvage equipment was landed there and transferred by pulley up the antenna cable to the tower.
Water splashes U-505’s upper gun platform while salvage crews work below to keep the boat afloat. They closed the conning tower hatch to keep the water out. On the bow is a mix of men from the USS Pillsbury boarding party and USS Guadalcanal salvage crew, surveying the bow for towing operations. Shortly after 1240 a signal reached Guadalcanal: “We must be towed to stay afloat.”
With U-505 barely afloat, a whaleboat brings a lead line to the sailors crammed onto the bow.
A short time later a 1¼“wire is being attached to USS Guadalcanal to take the stricken U-boat in tow.
Working on a small patch of dry deck, salvage and boarding crews rig gasoline-powered pumps to remove water from U-505. When exhaust fumes filled the boat, the sailors were forced to resort to hand pumps. The towing of the boat was prepared with the stern of USS Guadalcanal at times only 50 feet away. The first tow line snapped in the middle of the night and left U-505 on its own hook until dawn, when a larger tow line was hooked up.
Salvage parties struggle to keep the pumps operating. The signalman dressed in white awaits instructions to pass along to the task group. Captain Harald Lange’s shell insignia is clearly visible on the port side of the conning tower.
Washington dispatched USS Abnaki and two other vessels to take U-505 in tow and refuel the task group. They arrived on the morning of June 7. U-505 was in tow by 1015. Salvage parties removed loose gear and worked Abnaki’s electric pumps to keep U-505 dry. Eventually the boat’s stern rose almost level. Once underway, the submarine’s propellers spun on their own, which turned the boat’s generators and produced enough electricity to run compressors and blow the ballast tanks.
Several days after the capture Commander Earl Trosino, Guadalcanal’s chief engineer, decided that all loose gear had to be removed from the boat in an effort to lighten it and make more room for the ongoing salvage efforts. In the torpedo room salvagers discovered the Germans had been using this large bucket as a toilet while U-505 was being hunted. Nobody wanted to remove the disgusting bucket and dump it overboard, so Trosino demonstrated leadership by doing it himself.
Captain Daniel V. Gallery poses proudly on the conning tower of his war trophy. U-505’s antenna cable and wind deflector on top of the tower were damaged in the depth charge attack. Chipping paint reveals the tower’s aluminum outer skin. Several veterans recall that Gallery had the large American flag made in the sailmaker’s shop for the tow into Bermuda. This flag is today housed at Memorial Hall in Annapolis. The German flag, one of perhaps five found on board, was installed beneath the U.S. flag as a traditional sign of victor over vanquished. Barely visible between U-505’s shell emblem’s are the words “CAN DO JUNIOR,” which were painted by the salvage crew in recognition of Guadalcanal’s motto “CAN-DO,” which meant the ship could handle any tough job assigned to it. “The tougher the job, the better we’ll like it,” was how Gallery motivated the men under his command. The capture of U-505 was indeed a tough job well done.
When the crewmen arrived in the United States they were transported to a prisoner of war camp in Ruston, Louisiana. In violation of the Geneva Convention, they were held incommunicado for the rest of the war. Their families had no knowledge of their fate until they returned home.206
Intelligence Sharing
Not surprisingly, the codebreakers at Bletchley Park were eager to examine the cryptographic materials from U-505. They sent off a bold request to OP-20-G the morning after the capture:
Be most grateful if you could arrange for Navy Department to instruct CTG 22.3…to report…details of any code and cipher…documents captured, and to forward originals to U.K. by fast air after photostating.207
Evidently the British saw an additional advantage to be gained by examining original documents rather than copies.
Commander Wenger, head of OP-20-G, forwarded the message to Captain Smith-Hutton, F-20, with a note: “Attached dispatch will require your action. We want copies of all material.”208 Smith-Hutton passed the message along to Knowles, who wrote, “We will do nothing in this regard until situation clarifies.”209 Eventually, Bletchley Park received originals or photographic copies of cryptographic and communications material, grid charts, and current technical documents not already in the Admiralty’s possession.210
Conclusion
The intelligence support provided to Gallery began even before Task Group 22.3 departed on the fateful cruise.
When Gallery traveled to Washington and told his old friend Smith-Hutton of his intent to capture a German submarine, he returned to Norfolk with interior plans for two different types of U-boat (the result of human intelligence gleaned from prisoner interrogations) and assurances of accurate position estimates.
After his Task Group put to sea, the daily operational intelligence estimates Gallery received from Tenth Fleet provided him with solid intelligence, a product of HF/DF, Ultra, and the analytical skill of Knowles and his staff. This estimate specifically included U-505 every day from May 23 until the submarine was captured, and was routinely more accurate than the Kriegsmarine’s morning estimates. While Knowles, like BdU, overestimated U-505’s progress home, his estimates convinced Gallery to sail north roughly along 19-30W. If Gallery had instead steered a direct course to Casablanca to refuel, it is unlikely he would have passed close enough to U-505 to capture it. If his airplanes had found the submarine outside of the destroyers’ gun range, a capture would have been impossible and the aviators would have had to attempt to sink it instead.
As is always true in human events, chance played a role in shaping Gallery’s operation. Task Group 22.3 might have stumbled across U-505 while enroute to Casablanca, or perhaps while on the way home to Norfolk after refueling. In the event, Gallery made an operational decision based upon intelligence received from F-21. And his operational savvy, combined with years of outstanding intelligence work on both sides of the Atlantic, led to an event unparalleled in the history of modern naval warfare.
It was about this time Lange began to suspect he was the focus of a Hunter-Killer group, at the hub of which was an aircraft carrier supplying the irksome airplanes that were tormenting his boat. Events revealed his hunch was indeed correct, but by a quirk of fate he chose a most unfortunate course of action….
It was about this time Lange began to suspect he was the focus of a Hunter-Killer group, at the hub of which was an aircraft carrier supplying the irksome airplanes that were tormenting his boat. Events revealed his hunch was indeed correct, but by a quirk of fate he chose a most unfortunate course of action….
Lawrence Paterson
Collision Course
Task Group 22.3 and the Hunt for U-505
Far away from the north Atlantic convoy routes a chess game of detection and interception was being played by Allied naval strategists. The U.S. Navy’s U-Boat Intelligence Summary for April 28 deduced from intercepted BdU radio traffic that at least three submarines—U-190, U-155, and U-505—were patrolling “close to the coast in the Gulf of Guinea.” Enigma decryptions had betrayed the general area in which U-505 was unsuccessfully operating. Further radio transmissions from Oblt.z.S. der Reserve Harald Lange provided additional intelligence, as had HF/DF fixes, all of which served to narrow the span of ocean within which U-505 was patrolling. An American Task Force was despatched from Norfolk, Virginia, to take up the hunt.
At the core of this group steamed a Casablanca-class escort carrier and its invaluable aircraft contingent. Together, these carriers and planes provided the vital air cover that had helped turn the tide of the long and bitterly-fought U-boat war. The first escort carriers had entered action during 1943. Through precision intelligence provided by the Allied breaking of the Enigma code, the carriers were combined with destroyer escort groups to take the offensive against U-boats. Their effectiveness is difficult to dispute: between them the carriers USS Bogue and USS Card destroyed more than twenty U-boats before the end of the year. The deployment of these carriers in speedy and lethal “hunter- killer” groups eliminated the last small safe-haven pockets for U-boats operating in the Atlantic. Within three weeks one less U-boat would be threatening Allied shipping.1
Captain Daniel V. Gallery’s Task Force 22.3 comprised the escortcarrier USS Guadalcanal and its aerial contingent, Composite Squadron Eight, plus five destroyers of Escort Division Four: USS Pillsbury (carrying the Escort Division’s commanding officer), Chatelain, Flaherty, Pope, and Jenks. The entire Task Group put to sea on May 13, 1944, with the express intention of finding U-505. A burst boiler soon forced the return of USS Guadalcanal and delayed the mission for two days.
Captain Gallery was no stranger to hunting German submarines. His previous combat mission had killed two veteran boats—U-68 and U-515. The former went down with all hands. The success against the latter captured most of the crew, including its captain, Knight’s Cross holder Werner Henke. It also prompted Gallery to consider a bolder approach. “We had thrown everything but the galley ranges at U-515 before she up-ended and sank,” Gallery remembered. “For a while I thought we were going to have to ram her to put her on the bottom.” Another option, however, presented itself. “Suppose we hadn’t been quite so bloody minded about sinking her?” he pondered. “Suppose we had sent a party of stout hearted characters over there, to go aboard and make a survey of the situation after the Germans had shoved off?” The manner in which U-515 had been sunk convinced Gallery that U-boats that chose to surface during an attack rather than perish deep beneath the sea likely had little or no intention of fighting. The skipper’s primary objective, as he put it, was “to save his hide.”2
Therefore, explained Gallery,
We…determined, in case opportunity arose in this cruise, to assist and expedite the evacuation of the U-boat by concentrating anti-personnel weapons on it, to hold back with weapons that could sink the sub, and to attempt to board it as soon as possible. This was discussed at the departure conference of all Commanding Officers before sailing, and all ships were ordered to draw up plans for capture and to organize boarding parties.”3
With Guadalcanal repaired Task Group 22.3 put to sea again on May 15. Although he had lost two days, Gallery had lost none of his desire to bring home an enemy boat.
While in Norfolk, Gallery had ordered each ship in his task force to provide a boarding party for use in the event U-505 could be brought to the surface. Rigorous daily practice drills were held. The signal to launch each drill began with the cry “Away Boarders!” Small floods of volunteers then rushed to their ship’s designated whaler from whatever station they occupied. Once assembled, the men were lowered into the sea, rowed around their ship, and were hauled back aboard. Outwardly the practice session seemed like so much busy work, but the training would pay off sooner than anyone thought possible.
The man who was about to leave empty-handed and return to his superiors towing a U-boat that would one day end up displayed in his hometown was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. After graduating from the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Gallery began flight training at the naval flight school in Pensacola, Florida. With this background he was attached as an observer to the American Embassy in London and slated to take command of a U.S. Navy airbase then under construction. The Japanese attack against the United States on December 7, 1941, spun Gallery’s career in a different direction.
“I was ordered to Iceland to take command of Fleet Air Base, Reykjavik,” Galley recalled. If he was hoping for a short posting there he was disappointed. “I was there from December, 1941, until May, 1943…There were very primitive living conditions there when I first arrived, but within six months we had a very comfortable base built with excellent facilities for operating airplanes, for living, and for recreation.” As the war in the Atlantic grew more intense, Gallery worked closely with the British “under the operational control of the air officer commanding the Royal Air Force Iceland.” The arrangement worked fairly well until June 1943, when Gallery was ordered back to the United States to commission USS Guadalcanal [CVE-60] at Astoria, Oregon. “We left on our first ASW cruise in January 1944, and…got our first two U-boat kills when we surprised a refuelling operation and depth charged and sank a big refueller and a small U-boat alongside of it,” wrote Gallery with some exaggeration. In fact, only U-544 was sunk on January 16, but even that success was worth writing home about. “On our second cruise, which began late in March,” he continued, “we got two more kills. We san
k the U-515 and picked up 40-some prisoners, including the captain, and sank the U-68 the next day, getting one survivor and one dead man and a great deal of wreckage.”4
Gallery’s determination to capture a U-boat intact remained doggedly unwavering as Task Group 22.3 headed into action. While still in Norfolk he had shared his plans with Captain Henri Smith-Hutton, Assistant for Combat Intelligence (F-20) at COMINCH (office of the Commander in Chief, U.S. Navy, Admiral Ernest J. King). Smith-Hutton had been one of Gallery’s shipmates aboard the battleship USS Idaho during their years as junior officers, and the two men had remained firm friends over the intervening years. Smith-Hutton, in turn, promised Gallery he would receive up-to-date intelligence reports of U-boat activity, as he had during his previous two cruises. Interior plans of two types of U-boats known to be operating within the region were also provided by Smith-Hutton so Gallery could familiarize himself and his prospective boarding parties with their interiors—should they be fortunate enough to ever see one.5
Hunt and Kill Page 17