German Submarine U-505

Colourised by Doug Banks

 

     The German Submarine U-505 (Type IXC) captured at sea off the coast of Río de Oro, Western Sahara, West Africa on the 4th of June 1944 by a US carrier task group which had sunk two of U-505's sister boats from Lorient only a few weeks earlier.

     The carrier in question was the escort carrier USS Guadalcanal, which, in conjunction with four destroyers, formed hunter-killer Task Group 22.3. The group was commanded by Captain Daniel V. Gallery, one of the most talented and determined American sub hunting skippers of the war.

     On that day, shortly after 11 a.m., U-505's faulty sound detection equipment picked up faint propeller noises. When their captain Oblt.z.S. Lange rose to periscope depth to investigate, the sight he saw made his blood run cold. U-505 was in the midst of a carrier task group and about to be attacked by three destroyers and several aircraft. The boat immediately dived, but freakish water conditions allowed the aircraft to see the sub and use bursts from its .50-caliber machine guns to mark her submerged position for the destroyers.

     'They really gave it to us!' crewman Hans Goebeler remembers. 'They fired hedgehogs and about 64 depth charges at us. The explosions were the biggest I ever heard. One depth charge was so close it damaged torpedoes stored in the upper deck. Other depth charges jammed our main rudder and diving planes. Lange managed to fire one torpedo, but soon there was nothing for us to do but surface and abandon ship before she sank for good.

     Believing U-505 to be seriously damaged, Lange ordered his crew to abandon ship. This order was obeyed so promptly that scuttling was not completed.

     A boarding party from the escort destroyer USS Pillsbury safely secured U-505, it attempted to take her in tow, but collided repeatedly with her and had to move away with three compartments flooded. Instead, a second boarding party from Guadalcanal rigged a towline from the aircraft carrier to the U-boat.

     After three days of towing, Guadalcanal transferred U-505 to the fleet tug Abnaki (ATF-96). On Monday the 19th of June, U-505 entered Port Royal Bay, Bermuda, after a tow of 1,700 nautical miles (3,150 km; 1,960 mi).
     This action was the first time the U.S. Navy had captured an enemy vessel at sea since the War of 1812. 58 prisoners were taken from U-505, three of them wounded (including Lange); only one of the crew was killed in the action.