The Soviet designated "Project 641" Diesel Electric Attack Submarine, known to NATO as the Foxtrot Class, was one of the most successful class of submarine ever in service to the Soviet Navy. Seventy-nine Foxtrot's were constructed by the Soviet Union, the second largest class of submarines ever built by them, and the b-427, code named "Scorpion," was one of their best!
Built at the Sudomekh Shipyards just outside of Leningrad, now once more called St. Petersberg, the keel for Podvodnaya Lodka (submarine) b-427 was laid down in 1971. She was completed and commissioned into the Soviet Navy in 1972. At that time, "Scorpion" was fitted with all the latest developments in engines, sonar, radar and weaponry. She was indeed, "state of art" and truly the pride of the Soviet Navy's undersea fleet!
Assigned to the headquarters of the powerful Soviet Pacific Fleet based in Vladivostok and manned by a full compliment of 56 sailors, 10 midshipmen and 12 officers, "Scorpion" sailed out on its maiden voyage into the North Sea where she then turned south for her secret journey down the coast of Europe and Africa, rounding the Cape of Good Hope and then into the Indian Ocean. From there she sailed up the coast of Vietnam, then patrolled by the U.S. Navy, through the Sea of Japan and finally to her new home port, Vladivostok.
For the next 22 years, the missions undertaken by "Scorpion" are shrouded in secrecy and remain so to this day, still classified TOP SECRET by the new Navy of the Russian Federation. As one of the quietest submarines in the Soviet fleet, it is known that Foxtrot's were extensively used for surveillance of United States Navy Battle Groups as well as electronic surveillance of all types.
Although intrusions into North American territorial waters was officially forbidden, we do know that both sides in the Cold War considered submarines as the perfect espionage tool and rumors of such incursions persist to this very day.
We also know that the Vladivostok Submarine Squadron was regularly tasked with patrol of the Indian Ocean, the Arctic Ocean, the Sea of Japan and the Pacific Ocean as far east as North American territorial waters. After the end of the conflict in Vietnam, elements of the Soviet Pacific Submarine Fleet were also assigned to a new base in Vietnam and it is likely that "Scorpion" spent some time on assignment there as well.
It is a real tribute to the submarine forces of both sides in the Cold War that dispite their dangerous proximity to each other for over 40 years, neither side actually fired a shot in anger. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the ability and need for the Russian Federation to field the world’s largest fleet of submarines vanished. In 1994, "Scorpion" was decommissioned and ended her 22 year career as a Cold War Warrior, replaced by the next generation of Russian Diesel Attack Submarines, known by NATO as the Kilo Class.
In 1995, after negotiations, "Scorpion" was purchased by a group of private businessmen and with the help of the Russian Navy was transported to Sydney Australia for display at The National Maritime Museum and three years later to Long Beach, California where she now proudly stands as a monument to all the brave submarine crews of all sides in the Cold War who went to sea in "Sharks of Steel" and served their countries with honor.
U-505 is a German Type IXC U-boat built for service in the Kriegsmarine during World War II. She
was captured on 4 June 1944 by United States Navy Task
Group 22.3 (TG 22.3). Her codebooks,Enigma machine and other secret materials
found on board assisted Allied code breaking operations.[7]
All
but one of U-505's crew were rescued by the Navy task group. The
submarine was towed to Bermuda in secret and
her crew was interned at a US prisoner of war camp where they were denied
access to International Red
Cross visits. The Navy classified the capture as top secret and prevented its discovery by
the Germans.
In
1954, U-505 was donated to the Museum
of Science and Industry in Chicago, Illinois and is now a museum ship.
She
is one of six U-boats that were captured by Allied forces during World War II,
and the first warship to be captured by U.S. forces on the high seas since the War of 1812. [8] U-505 is one of
four German World War II U-boats that survive as museum ships, and the only
Type IXC still in existence.
U-505's keel was laid down on 12 June 1940 by Deutsche Werft in Hamburg, Germany as werk 295.
She was launched on 25 May 1941 and commissioned on 26 August with Kapitänleutnant (Kptlt.)
Axel-Olaf Loewe in command. On 6 September 1942, Loewe was relieved by Kptlt. Peter Zschech. On 24 October 1943, Oberleutnant zur See Paul
Meyer took command for about two weeks until he was relieved on 8 November by Oberleutnant (Oblt). Harald
Lange. Lange then commanded the boat until her capture on 4 June
1944.[2]
She
conducted twelve patrols in her career, sinking eight ships totaling
44,962 tons. Three of these were American, two British, one Norwegian, one
Dutch and one Colombian.[2]
First patrol
Following
training exercises with the 4th U-boat Flotilla from
26 August 1941 to 31 January 1942, U-505 was assigned as an
operational boat to the 2nd U-boat Flotilla on
1 February. However, she began her first patrol from Kiel on
19 January while still formally undergoing training. For 16 days, she circumnavigated the British Isles, and
docked at Lorient, in occupied France on 3 February.
During her first patrol, U-505 engaged no enemy vessels and
was not attacked.[9]
Second patrol
U-505 left Lorient on 11 February on her second patrol. In 86
days, she traveled down to the west coast of Africa where she sank her first
four vessels. In less than one month, U-505 sank four ships:
the British Benmohr, the Norwegian Sydhav, the American West
Irmo, and the Dutch Alphacca for a total of 25,041 tons.
On 18 April, U-505 was attacked by an Allied aircraft in
mid-Atlantic but suffered little damage.[10]
Third patrol
U-505 began her third patrol on 7 June 1942, after leaving her
home port of Lorient. She sank the American ships Sea Thrush and Thomas
McKean and the Colombian Roamar in the Caribbean Sea. The Roamar was
a sailing ship belonging to a Colombian diplomat, so its sinking gave Colombia
political grounds to declare war on Germany.[11] U-505 then
returned to Lorient on 25 August, after 80 days on patrol, without ever being
attacked.[12]
Kptlt. Loewe was transferred to
shore duty due to ill-health. Kptlt. Zschech replaced him.
Fourth patrol
U-505's fourth patrol sent her to the northern coast of South America.
She left Lorient on 4 October and sank the British vessel Ocean Justice off
the coast of Venezuela on 7
November. On 10 November near Trinidad, U-505 was surprised
on the surface by a Lockheed Hudson maritime patrol
aircraft from No. 53 Squadron, Royal Air Force, which made a low-level
attack, landing a 250 lb (110 kg) bomb directly on the deck from just
above water level. The explosion killed one watch officer and wounded another
in the conning tower. It also tore the anti-aircraft gun off its mounting and
severely damaged the ship's pressure hull. The aircraft was hit by shrapnel
from the bomb's explosion and crashed into the ocean near U-505,
killing the crew. With the pumps inoperative and water flooding the engine room
in several places, Kptlt. Zschech ordered the crew to abandon ship,
but the technical staff (led by Chief Petty Officer Otto Fricke) insisted on
trying to save her. The vessel was successfully made water-tight after almost
two weeks of repair work. After sending the wounded watch officer to the supply submarine ("milk
cow") U-462, U-505 limped
back to Lorient on reduced power, earning the distinction of "most heavily
damaged U-boat to successfully return to port".[11][13]
Botched patrols
After
six months in Lorient for repairs, U-505 started her fifth
patrol. She left Lorient on 1 July 1943 but returned after only 13 days, after
an attack by three British destroyers that had stalked her for over 30 hours.
While U-505 was not badly damaged in this encounter, she had
to return to France for repairs.[14] U-505's next four
patrols were all aborted after only a few days at sea, due to equipment failure
and sabotage by French dockworkers working for the resistance.[15][16][17][18] Faults found included
sabotaged electrical and radar equipment, a hole deliberately drilled in a
diesel fuel tank, and faulty welds on parts repaired by French workers. This
happened so many times, she became the butt of jokes throughout the base at
Lorient. Upon returning from one botched patrol, her crew found a sign painted
in the docking area reading: "U-505's Hunting Ground". At a
time when many U-boats were being sunk, U-505's commander, Kptlt.
Zschech, overheard another U-boat commander joke, "There is one commander
who will always come back … Zschech."[19]
Tenth patrol – Zschech's
suicide
After
ten months in Lorient, U-505 departed for her tenth Atlantic
patrol, seeking to break her run of bad luck and bad morale. On 24 October
1943, not long after transiting the Bay of Biscay, U-505 was
spotted by British destroyers east of the Azores and was forced to submerge and endure a severe
and lengthy depth charge attack.
In
a testament to both the intensity of the attack and his own instability,
Zschech snapped under the strain and committed suicide in the submarine's
control room, shooting himself in the head in front of his crew. The first
watch officer, Paul Meyer, quickly took command, rode out the rest of the
attack and returned the boat to port with minimal damage. Despite his quick
thinking, Meyer was not rewarded, merely "absolved from all blame" by
the Kriegsmarine for the embarrassing incident.[20][21] Zschech is recorded as the
first submariner in history to commit suicide underwater in response to the
stress of a prolonged depth charging, and the first (and thus-far only) officer
to commit suicide while commanding a warship in battle.a Experts[who?] have
speculated bad morale and poor command influence demonstrated (and encouraged)
by this series of humiliating failures might help explain the crew's later
failure to scuttle U-505 properly
before abandoning her,[citation needed]although
this is disputed by some crew members.[11]
Eleventh patrol
Zschech
was replaced as commander by Oblt. Harald Lange. U-505's
eleventh patrol began on Christmas Day 1943. She again returned early to
Lorient on 2 January 1944, after she rescued thirty-three crew members from the German torpedo
boat T-25, sunk on 28 December by British cruisers in
the Bay of Biscay.[22]
Twelfth patrol and
capture
Anti-sub task force
Ultra intelligence
from decrypted German cipher messages had informed the Allies that U-boats were
operating near Cape Verde, but had
not revealed their exact locations.[23][24] The U.S. Navy dispatched Task
Group 22.3, a "Hunter-Killer" group, commanded by Captain Daniel V. Gallery, USN, to the
area. TG 22.3 consisted of Gallery's escort aircraft
carrier Guadalcanal,
and five destroyer escorts under
Commander Frederick S. Hall: Pillsbury, Pope, Flaherty, Chatelain,
and Jenks.[25] On 15 May 1944, TG 22.3 sailed
from Norfolk, Virginia.
Starting in late May, the task group began searching for U-boats in the area,
using high-frequency direction-finding fixes ("Huff-Duff")
and air and surface reconnaissance.
Detection and attack
At
11:09 on 4 June 1944, TG 22.3 made sonar (ASDIC)
contact with U-505 at 21°30′N 19°20′W,
about 150 miles (241 km) off the coast of Río de Oro.[23] The sonar contact was only 800
yards (700 m) away off Chatelain's starboard bow. The escorts
immediately moved towards the contact, while Guadalcanal moved
away at top speed and launched an F4F Wildcat fighter to join another
Wildcat and a TBM Avenger which
were already airborne.[26]
Chatelain was so close to U-505 that depth charges
would not sink fast enough to intercept the U-boat, so instead she fired Hedgehogs before passing the submarine
and turning to make a follow-up attack with depth charges.[23] At around this time, one of
the aircraft sighted U-505 and fired into the water to mark
the position while Chatelain dropped depth charges.
Immediately after the detonation of the charges a large oil slick spread on the
water and the fighter pilot overhead radioed, "You struck oil! Sub is
surfacing!"[27] Less than seven minutes after Chatelain's
first attack began, the badly damaged U-505 surfaced less than
600 metres (700 yd) away.[26] Chatelain immediately
commenced fire on U-505 with all available automatic weapons,
joined by other ships of the task force as well as the two Wildcats.[23]
Believing U-505 to
be seriously damaged, Oblt. Lange ordered his crew to abandon ship.
This order was obeyed so promptly that scuttling was not completed, (although
some valves were opened) and the engines were left running.[23] With the engines still
functioning and the rudder damaged by depth charges, U-505 circled
clockwise at approximately 7 knots (13 km/h). Seeing the U-boat turning
toward him and believing she was preparing to attack, the commanding officer of Chatelain ordered
a single torpedo to be fired at the submarine; the
torpedo missed, passing ahead of the now-abandoned U-505.[23]
While Chatelain and Jenks collected
survivors, an eight-man party from Pillsbury led by Lieutenant
(Junior Grade) Albert David came alongside U-505 in
a boat and entered via the conning tower. There was a dead man on the
deck (the only fatality of the action), but U-505 was
otherwise deserted. The boarding party secured charts and codebooks, closed
scuttling valves and disarmed demolition charges. They stopped the water coming
in, and although low in the water and down by the stern, U-505 remained
afloat. They also stopped her engines.[23]
While
the boarding party secured U-505, Pillsbury 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 fromGuadalcanal rigged
a towline from the aircraft carrier to the U-boat.[23]
Commander
Earl Trosino (Guadalcanal's chief engineer), joined the salvage party.
He disconnected U-505's diesels from her electric driving motors,
while leaving these motors clutched to the propeller shafts. With the U-boat
moving under tow by Guadalcanal, the propellers
"windmilled" as they passed through the water, turning the shafts and
the drive motors. The motors acted as electrical generators,
and charged U-505's batteries. With power from the batteries, U-505's
pumps cleared out the water let in by the attempted scuttling, and her air
compressors blew out the ballast tanks, bringing her up to full surface trim.[23]
After
three days of towing, Guadalcanal transferred U-505 to
the fleet tug Abnaki.
On Monday, 19 June, U-505 entered Port Royal Bay, Bermuda, after a tow of 1,700 miles
(2,740 km).
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.
U-505's crew was interned at Camp Ruston, near Ruston, Louisiana. Among the guards were
members of the U.S. Navy baseball team, composed mostly of minor league
professional baseball players who had previously toured combat areas to
entertain the troops. The players taught some of the U-505 sailors
to play the game.[28]
Outcome
The
cipher materials captured on U-505 included the special
"coordinate" code, the regular and officer Enigma settings for June 1944, the
current short weather codebook, the short signal codebook and bigram tables due to come into effect in July and
August respectively.
The
material from U-505 arrived at the decryption establishment at Bletchley Park on 20 June 1944. While the
Allies were able to break most Enigma settings by intense cryptanalysis
(including heavy use of the electromechanical "bombes"), having the
Enigma settings for the U-boats saved a lot of work and time, which could be
applied to other keys. The settings break was only valid until the end of June
and therefore had an extremely limited outcome on the eventual cracking of the
enigma code, but having the weather and short signal codebooks and bigram
tables made the work easier.
The
"coordinate" code was used in German messages as an added layer of
security for locations. Allied commanders sent Hunter-Killer task groups to
these known U-boat locations, and routed shipping away.[29]
A
more lasting benefit came from the intact capture of the U-boat's two G7es (Zaunkönig T-5)
acoustic homing torpedoes. These were thoroughly analyzed and then tested on
the range, giving information that was invaluable in improving the Foxer and
FXR countermeasures systems, as well as the doctrine for using them to protect
escorts.[30]
That U-505 was
captured and towed—rather than merely sunk after the codebooks had been
taken—was considered to have endangered the Ultra secret. The U.S. Chief of Naval
Operations, Admiral King,
considered court-martialling Captain Gallery.[29]To protect the secret, U-505's
crewmen, who knew of the U-boat's capture, were isolated from other prisoners
of war; the Red Cross were
denied access to them. Ultimately, the Kriegsmarine declared
the crew dead and informed the families to that effect. The last of the German
crew was not returned until 1947.[31]
For
leading the boarding party, LTJG Albert David received the Medal of Honor, the only time it was awarded
to an Atlantic Fleet sailor in World War II. Torpedoman's Mate Third Class
Arthur W. Knispel and Radioman Second Class Stanley E. Wdowiak, the first two
to follow David into the submarine, received the Navy Cross. Seaman First Class Earnest James
Beaver, also of the boarding party, received the Silver Star. Commander Trosino received the Legion of Merit. Captain Gallery, who had
conceived and executed the operation, received the Navy
Distinguished Service Medal.
The
Task Group was awarded the Presidential
Unit Citation. Admiral Royal E. Ingersoll,
Commander in Chief, U.S. Atlantic Fleet, cited the Task Group for
"outstanding performance during anti-submarine operations in the eastern
Atlantic on 4 June 1944, when the Task Group attacked, boarded, and captured
the German submarine U-505 … The Task Group's brilliant
achievement in disabling, capturing, and towing to a United States base a
modern enemy man-of-war taken in combat on the high seas is a feat
unprecedented in individual and group bravery, execution, and accomplishment in
the Naval History of the United States."[23]
U-505 was kept at the navy base in Bermuda and intensively studied
by U.S. Navy intelligence and engineering officers. Some of what was learned
was included in postwar diesel submarine designs. To maintain the illusion that
she had been sunk rather than captured, she was temporarily renamed USS Nemo.[32]
After
the war, the Navy had no further use for U-505. She had been
thoroughly examined in Bermuda, and was now moored derelict at the Portsmouth Navy Yard.
It was decided to use her as a target for gunnery and torpedo practice until
she sank.[23] In 1946, Gallery, now a rear
admiral, told his brother Father John Gallery about this plan. Father John
contacted President Lenox Lohr of Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry
(MSI) to see if they would be interested in U-505. MSI, established
by Chicago businessman Julius Rosenwald, was a center for
"industrial enlightenment" and public science education, specializing
in interactive exhibits. As the museum already planned to display a submarine,
the acquisition of U-505 seemed ideal.[23] In September 1954, U-505 was
donated to Chicago by the U.S. government, a public subscription among Chicago
residents raised $250,000 for transporting and installing the boat. The vessel
was towed by United States
Coast Guard tugs and cutters through the Great Lakes, making a stop inDetroit, Michigan in the summer of 1954.[33] On 25 September 1954, U-505 was
dedicated as a permanent exhibit and a war memorial to all the sailors who lost
their lives in the two Battles
of the Atlantic.
When U-505 was
donated to the Museum, she had been sitting neglected at the Portsmouth Navy
Yard for nearly ten years; just about every removable part had been stripped
from her interior. She was in no condition to serve as an exhibit.
Admiral
Gallery proposed a possible solution. At his suggestion, Lohr contacted the
German manufacturers who had supplied U-505's original components
and parts, asking for replacements. As the Admiral reported in his
autobiography, Eight Bells and All's
Well, to his and the museum's surprise, every company supplied
the requested parts without charge. Most included letters that said in effect,
"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."[34]
In
1989, U-505 was designated a National
Historic Landmark. When the U.S. Navy demolished its Arctic
Submarine Laboratory in Point Loma,
California in 2003, U-505's original observation
periscope was discovered. Before the submarine was donated to the MSI, the
periscope had been removed from U-505 and placed in a water
tank used for research. After being recovered, the periscope was given to the
museum to be displayed along with the submarine.[35][36]
By
2004, the U-boat's exterior had suffered noticeable damage from the weather; so
in April 2004, the museum moved the U-boat to a new underground, covered,
climate-controlled location. Now protected from the elements, the restored U-505 reopened
to the public on 5 June 2005.
Popular
culture
The
story of the captured crew of U-505 has been recounted in Gary
Moore's book, Playing with the Enemy: A Baseball Prodigy, a World at
War, and a Field of Broken Dreams. Pre-production of the motion
picture Playing with the Enemy was underway and release was
scheduled for 2013, as of April 2012.[38] Additionally, the story of
U-505, including its many patrols and eventual capture, as well as the lives of
the men that served her is retold through the memoirs of Hans Goebeler in the
book Steel Boat, Iron Hearts: A U-Boat crewman's life aboard U-505.
John Chatterton repeatedly toured U-505 as
part of his preparations for diving on the then-unidentified wreck of U-869;
this allowed him to gain a 'feel' for the interior of a Type IX U-boat, which
improved the safety and productivity of his dives.[39]
The
June 2010 Dick Tracy newspaper
comic storyline finds the detective at the Science Museum, hiding from the
villain in a German submarine with "505" painted on the conning
tower.
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