Hiding beneath the surface of Chicago streets is one of the most lethal weapons in the arsenal of Nazi Germany U-505, and the first enemy vessel captured by the US Navy since the War of 1812.
Capture of this vessel provided invaluable military intelligence in the war against Nazi Germany. A permanent exhibit now at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, it is a war memorial to the sailors who lost their lives in the Battles of the Atlantic, and National Historic Landmark.
Built for the Nazi Kriegsmarine of World War II, the German Type IXC U-Boat was one of the most terrifying weapons of the Atlantic during the War. Merchant ships moving in that ocean were under constant threat from these submerged vessels, which often struck without cause or warning of any sort.
Allied forces formed convoys to counter the threat, escorting merchant’s ships to their destinations, launching depth charges, and/or hedgehog bombs in response to U-boat attacks. While very effective against a solitary U-boat attack, as with most things to do with war, safety in numbers only works against smaller numbers.
The US Navy responded by organizing antisubmarine escort ships as Hunter-Killer Task Groups, under the command of the top-secret 10th Fleet, often consisting of an air carrier and light destroyers escorts that pooled technology to go on the offensive against the U-boats.
Fanning out and hunting U-boats specifically, targeting them one at a time, proved to be the most effective means of reducing and further eliminating this threat. Pilots visually patrolled the seas during the daytime and relied on radar at night, dropping sonobuoys in suspect waters to listen for U-boats. When one was discovered, a pilot would dive and fire on its assumed position to aid the destroyers in targeting. Such was the story with U-505.
Nazi Germany responded by forming their U-boat attacks into groups called Wolf Packs to facilitate their attacks against convoys. Indeed, in March of 1943, 40 U-boats attacked two convoys of 100 ships, sinking 21 merchant ships in the largest Wolfpack attack of the war.
Formulating a plant to capture a U-boat, Task Group 22.3 went on a mission to capture U-505 specifically, which the 10th Fleet team had been tracking for over a month. Leveraging the latest intelligence and technology, the group searched for weeks. Frustrated and calling off the search, the ship began a return trip for re-fueling when a sonar operator reported possible contact.
The Task Group began its coordinated attack after maneuvering into position. After only 7 minutes of constant bombardment by depth charges and other munitions, a large oil slick appeared, and a badly damaged U-505 surfaced.
Further surface attacks forced the crew of the U-boat to abandon ship, leaving the engine running, and without scuttling the vessel. The latter proved invaluable to the US Navy. Charts and code books seized and analyzed were instrumental in future successful skirmishes against the Nazi Navy.
After towing U-505 back to Bermuda, and renaming the USS Nemo to maintain an illusion of the vessel sinking rather than having been captured, the US Navy studied the ship intensely. It offered little beyond the valuable cache of code books, but did offer insight into engineering, later leveraged for US postwar diesel submarine design.
The plan for the U-boat was target practice after that, but the officer in charge of her capture suggested donation to the Museum of Science and Industry. Having been stripped down, and a lot of parts were missing, but German manufacturers supplied replacement parts without charge stating, “We are sorry that you have our U-boat, but since she’s going to be there for many years, we want her to be a credit to German technology.
Originally displayed outdoors until 2004, the U-boat moved to a new underground, climate-controlled environment, and reopened to the public a year later, where it has remained lurking under the streets of Chicago since.
Originally published in journalGeographica on July 5, 2007
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