- 11 minutes ago
Eight Americans boarded a sinking German U-boat and walked into one of the strangest intelligence coups of World War II. Off Cape Blanco, U-505 was crippled, abandoned, and still dangerous when Lieutenant Albert David led the first boarding party down into the dark to search for documents, code material, and anything that could be saved before the submarine vanished.
What followed was part naval action, part covert history: a captured Enigma machine, German codebooks, hidden charges, a jammed rudder, and a desperate attempt to tow the submarine across the Atlantic without letting the enemy learn what had happened. The story also follows Captain Daniel Gallery, Task Group 22.3, and the 3,000 American sailors and airmen who kept the secret for 11 months.
This WW2 history documentary-style narration turns a U-boat capture into a gripping military story about boarding parties, naval intelligence, anti-submarine warfare, and the cost of secrecy. It is ideal for listeners searching for World War II stories, U-boat history, Enigma machine history, naval warfare, and forgotten war stories.
SEO: WW2 history, World War II stories, U-boat capture, Enigma machine, naval intelligence, military history narration, anti-submarine warfare, boarding party story, German submarine U-505, forgotten war stories, history documentary, war stories for background listening.
What followed was part naval action, part covert history: a captured Enigma machine, German codebooks, hidden charges, a jammed rudder, and a desperate attempt to tow the submarine across the Atlantic without letting the enemy learn what had happened. The story also follows Captain Daniel Gallery, Task Group 22.3, and the 3,000 American sailors and airmen who kept the secret for 11 months.
This WW2 history documentary-style narration turns a U-boat capture into a gripping military story about boarding parties, naval intelligence, anti-submarine warfare, and the cost of secrecy. It is ideal for listeners searching for World War II stories, U-boat history, Enigma machine history, naval warfare, and forgotten war stories.
SEO: WW2 history, World War II stories, U-boat capture, Enigma machine, naval intelligence, military history narration, anti-submarine warfare, boarding party story, German submarine U-505, forgotten war stories, history documentary, war stories for background listening.
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LearningTranscript
00:0011.38 in the morning, June 4th, 1944.
00:04150 miles off Cape Blanco, on the western bulge of Africa,
00:08a German submarine is running on the surface in a slow circle,
00:12and there is nobody aboard her.
00:14Her rudder is jammed hard over.
00:16Her diesels are dead, but her electric motors are still turning the shafts,
00:20so she is making about six knots in a wide, patient arc,
00:24settling by the stern as she goes.
00:27Fifty-eight men have just come off her into the swells,
00:30and they are swimming away from her as fast as they can,
00:32because they know what is supposed to happen to her in the next few minutes.
00:36Off her quarter, a whale boat from the destroyer escort Pillsbury is chasing her down.
00:41There are eight men in that boat.
00:43In the bow is a lieutenant junior grade named Albert David,
00:4741 years old, out of Maryville, Missouri.
00:50He joined the Navy in 1919, at 17,
00:53and spent more than 20 years in the enlisted ranks before the war made him an officer.
00:58On the Pillsbury, he is the assistant engineering and electrical officer,
01:02which means his war so far has been pumps, wiring, and switchboards.
01:07Behind him are Arthur Nispel, torpedo man's mate, third class,
01:12and Stanley Wadoviak, radio man, second class.
01:16Those three go first.
01:17That is the order.
01:18And every man in the whale boat knows precisely what is waiting,
01:22because they have been briefed on it for seven weeks.
01:25A U-boat crew that abandons ship does not simply climb out and leave.
01:29They open the vents.
01:31They pull the covers off the sea strainers,
01:33so the ocean can come in through six-inch pipes.
01:36They set demolition charges through the length of the hull,
01:39and they pull the fuses on the way to the ladder.
01:41The whole routine takes about a minute,
01:43and the men who have just run it are floating a few hundred yards away,
01:47treading water, waiting to watch their boat go down.
01:50The submarine is low enough now that the sea is washing over her after deck.
01:55The coxswain lays the whale boat against her moving hull.
01:58David goes up the wet steel, over the side of the conning tower,
02:02and stops for one second at the open hatch,
02:05looking down into a black tube 250 feet long,
02:08with water in it he can hear but cannot see.
02:12Then he goes down the ladder.
02:14Hold that picture, because I want to put the real question to you now,
02:18and it is not the question you would expect.
02:20There were five American destroyer escorts
02:23and one escort carrier within two miles of that submarine.
02:28Any one of them could have put her under in 90 seconds
02:31and gone home with a clean kill
02:33and a fresh silhouette painted on the bridge.
02:35Sinking her was the easy answer, the safe answer,
02:39and the answer the United States Navy had been giving for two and a half years.
02:44Somebody had ordered them not to.
02:47And there is a second question, stranger than the first.
02:52What happened in the water off Cape Blanco that morning
02:55was seen by about 3,000 American sailors and airmen.
02:59Every single one of them went silent about it,
03:02and stayed silent for 11 months.
03:05They did not write home about it.
03:07They did not tell their wives.
03:09Some of them sat in their own living rooms on leave
03:12while relatives asked what they had been doing out in the Atlantic
03:15and said nothing at all.
03:183,000 men buried their own victory.
03:23Hold on to that number.
03:25By the end of this,
03:26you will understand exactly what it cost them.
03:29If you want more stories told this way,
03:31take a second and hit like,
03:33and subscribe if you haven't.
03:35It helps this one reach the people who still care
03:37what American sailors did out there.
03:40Back to David, on the ladder.
03:42To understand why he is going down that hatch
03:45instead of watching from a gun mount,
03:46you have to go back seven weeks.
03:48And you have to meet the man whose idea this was.
03:52Captain Daniel Gallery commanded Task Group 22.3,
03:56the escort carrier Guadalcanal,
03:58and five destroyer escorts,
04:00Pillsbury, Pope, Flaherty,
04:02Chatelaine, and Jenks.
04:05His job was the hunter-killer job.
04:07Go out into the middle of the Atlantic
04:09where the convoys were not,
04:11find U-boats, and kill them.
04:13He was good at it.
04:15In April, his group had blown U-515 to the surface,
04:19and Gallery stood on his bridge
04:21and watched a German submarine
04:22wallow out there in the open
04:24for several minutes before she finally went down.
04:27And he had a thought that most of the Navy
04:29would have called reckless.
04:31She had floated.
04:33If a U-boat could float,
04:34a U-boat could be taken.
04:36There was one thing aboard a working German submarine
04:39that the Allies wanted more than they wanted the submarine,
04:42more than they wanted her crew,
04:43and more than they wanted the credit for the kill.
04:47It was not large.
04:48It fit in a wooden box
04:50roughly the size of a portable typewriter,
04:52and it sat in the radio room,
04:54four steps from the bottom of the ladder
04:56Albert David was climbing down.
04:58Go back eight weeks from that hatch.
05:00April 9th, 1944, north of Madeira.
05:04The same task group,
05:06the same five destroyer escorts,
05:08and a German submarine called U-515
05:11with one of the most decorated commanders
05:13in the U-boat force aboard her.
05:16His name was Werner Henke,
05:18and by the spring of 1944,
05:20he had more than 150,000 tons
05:23of Allied shipping to his credit.
05:26Berlin knew his name.
05:28So did the Admiralty in London.
05:31Guadalcanal's aircraft and her escorts
05:33held him down for hours,
05:34and when he finally came up,
05:36hedgehogs and depth charges
05:38had done enough
05:38that he could not go back down.
05:41Henke put his boat on the surface.
05:43His men came out.
05:45Forty-four of them,
05:46including Henke himself,
05:48were pulled out of the Atlantic
05:49by American sailors
05:50and locked below.
05:52And Captain Daniel Gallery,
05:54standing on the bridge of his carrier,
05:57was not watching the prisoners.
05:59He was watching the boat.
06:01She sat there,
06:03riddled, burning,
06:04finished, and floating.
06:06She stayed on the surface long enough
06:08for Gallery to count the seconds
06:09and think a thought
06:10that the rest of the United States Navy
06:12would have called,
06:13at best,
06:14eccentric.
06:15Not since 1815
06:17had an American warship
06:19taken an enemy man-of-war
06:20on the high seas
06:21and brought her home.
06:23It had simply stopped
06:24being something navies did.
06:26But she floated.
06:28She floated for minutes.
06:30Here's the thing I want you to notice
06:32about that morning,
06:33because it is the small hinge
06:34the whole story swings on.
06:37Gallery did not go to his admirals
06:39and ask permission for a capture.
06:41He went back to Norfolk
06:43and quietly turned his task group
06:45into something that had not existed
06:46in the American fleet before.
06:49Every ship in 22.3
06:51was ordered to form a boarding party.
06:53Not a paper roster,
06:55a real one with names on it.
06:57An officer to lead it.
06:59A motor machinist
07:00who understood valves and pumps.
07:02A radioman
07:03who would know a codebook
07:04from a laundry list.
07:05A torpedo man
07:07for the demolition charges.
07:08Men were told to learn
07:09what the inside
07:10of a German submarine looked like.
07:12Where the control room sat.
07:14Where the radio room sat.
07:16Which valve was which.
07:18What the German words
07:19on a brass plate meant
07:20when you were reading them
07:21by flashlight
07:22in a flooding compartment.
07:25Think about what is being asked there.
07:27These were destroyer escort sailors
07:30on their second or third cruise.
07:32They were being trained
07:33to climb down
07:35into a sinking enemy ship
07:36rigged to blow up
07:37and work.
07:40On the Pillsbury,
07:41the man who ended up with the job
07:43was Albert David,
07:44the assistant engineer.
07:46He was the oldest kind of officer
07:48the Navy had.
07:49A man who had spent two decades
07:51as an enlisted sailor
07:52before someone pinned a bar on him.
07:55And he had a professional reason
07:56to be on that list.
07:58If your problem is water
08:00coming into a hole,
08:01you want the engineer.
08:04Now, the second half
08:05of the preparation
08:06had nothing to do with courage.
08:08And everything to do
08:09with a room in Washington
08:10almost nobody in the fleet
08:12knew existed.
08:13In the Navy's tent fleet,
08:14there was a submarine tracking room
08:16run by a commander
08:17named Kenneth Knowles.
08:18Its business was to know
08:20where every German submarine
08:21in the Atlantic was.
08:22And its raw material
08:24was radio.
08:26Whenever a U-boat transmitted,
08:28Allied direction-finding stations
08:29scattered around the ocean
08:31took a bearing on the signal.
08:32And the crossing bearings
08:33gave a fix,
08:34a pencil mark on a plot.
08:37Through the spring of 1944,
08:39one of those pencil marks
08:40had been crawling south
08:41along the African coast.
08:43And Knowles' people
08:44had done something with it
08:45that goes beyond tracking.
08:47They had predicted.
08:49This boat, they said,
08:50would be coming back north
08:52around the end of May,
08:53along the bulge of Africa.
08:55That prediction
08:56was handed to Gallery.
08:58He sailed from Norfolk
08:59on May 15th,
09:00straight for a piece
09:01of empty ocean,
09:02where a submarine
09:03was expected to be
09:04at a date somebody had guessed.
09:06Now start the clock
09:07that actually runs this story.
09:09An escort carrier
09:10and five destroyer escorts
09:123,000 miles from home
09:14burn fuel every hour,
09:15whether they find anything or not.
09:18By the last days of May,
09:21Gallery had searched
09:21the predicted area
09:22and come up with nothing.
09:24On the night of June 3rd,
09:26his group worked a contact
09:28far astern and lost it,
09:30and there was not enough fuel
09:32left to chase ghosts.
09:34So at sunrise on June 4th, 1944,
09:38the task group gave up.
09:40Gallery turned Guadalcanal north
09:42and set course for Casablanca
09:44to refuel.
09:45Remember that turn.
09:473,000 American sailors
09:49were pointed away
09:51from the war's strangest prize
09:53on a Sunday morning
09:55with the beaches of Normandy
09:5748 hours away
09:58and nobody out here knowing it.
10:01At 10 past 11,
10:02the destroyer escort Chatelaine
10:04reported a possible sound contact,
10:06not out on the horizon
10:08where a hunting group wants it,
10:10but underneath the formation,
10:11in among the ships.
10:13What happened in the next seven minutes
10:15was not decided by sonar.
10:18It was decided by two men
10:20in fighter planes at 1,000 feet
10:22who could see something in the water
10:24that no ship in that group could see
10:26and who had 30 seconds
10:28to make the rest of the fleet
10:29understand it.
10:3010 minutes past 11
10:31on a flat Sunday morning
10:33and the sonar operator
10:35on the destroyer escort Chatelaine
10:37has something under the formation.
10:39Not ahead of it.
10:41Under it.
10:43That distinction matters
10:44because a hunting group
10:45expects to hear a submarine
10:47out of the edge of its search,
10:48where the sound gear
10:50has room to work.
10:51A contact underneath the ships
10:53means the boat
10:54is already inside the ring,
10:56close enough
10:57to be lining up on the carrier,
10:58and it means the men
11:00on Chatelaine
11:01have minutes at most.
11:03Her captain turns toward it
11:04and calls for the two fighters overhead.
11:07There were two wildcats
11:09up that morning,
11:10flown by Ensign John Cattle
11:11and Lieutenant Wolf Roberts.
11:14From 1,000 feet
11:15on a calm sea
11:16with the sun high,
11:18a submerged submarine
11:19is not invisible.
11:21She is a long, dark smudge
11:23under the surface,
11:24moving,
11:25and the pilots
11:26could see her from up there,
11:27while the ships,
11:292,000 yards away,
11:30could see nothing at all
11:31but their own sonar picture.
11:33So the pilots did something
11:35with their machine guns
11:36that had nothing to do
11:37with killing anybody.
11:38They walked bursts
11:39of .50 caliber fire
11:41into the water
11:42directly over the submarine.
11:44Not at her.
11:45Over her.
11:47600 rounds
11:48turning a patch
11:49of the Atlantic white
11:50so that every man
11:52on every bridge
11:53in that task group
11:54could look up,
11:55see the splashes,
11:56and know exactly
11:57where to steer.
11:58And when the pilots
11:59saw Chatelaine
12:00heading the wrong way,
12:02they told her
12:02to reverse course.
12:04That is the whole
12:05American system
12:06in one gesture.
12:08Aircraft,
12:09ships,
12:09and sonar
12:10tied together
12:11into a single machine,
12:13run by three or four
12:14young men
12:15talking on a radio circuit.
12:181121.
12:19Chatelaine rolls
12:2014 depth charges,
12:22600 pounds apiece,
12:24set shallow.
12:25Now go under the water,
12:26because what happens next
12:28is a decision made
12:29by a man
12:30with about 40 seconds
12:31to make it.
12:32The submarine
12:33was U-505,
12:35and her commander
12:36was Harold Lang,
12:3840 years old,
12:39a merchant marine officer
12:40before the war.
12:41He had been in command
12:42about seven months,
12:43and he had inherited
12:44the unluckiest boat
12:45in the German submarine force.
12:47That is not
12:48a figure of speech.
12:50On her previous patrol
12:51in October of 1943,
12:53under a depth charge attack
12:55in the North Atlantic,
12:56U-505's former commander
12:58had shot himself
12:59in the head
13:00in his own control room,
13:01in front of his crew,
13:02and the boat
13:03had been brought home
13:04by her first officer.
13:06Every man aboard
13:07that morning off Africa
13:08had either lived
13:09through that
13:10or heard about it
13:11in detail
13:12before he reported aboard.
13:14Understand what that does
13:15to a crew.
13:16These were not cowards,
13:18but they were sailors
13:19who had already watched
13:20their command
13:21break apart once,
13:22in the dark,
13:23under exactly the sound
13:24they were now hearing again.
13:27The charges went off close.
13:29The lights went out.
13:30Water came in somewhere aft
13:32under pressure,
13:33which, in a submarine,
13:34sounds like the end
13:35of the world,
13:36and the depth gauge
13:37in the diving planes
13:38stopped answering.
13:40The rudder jammed hard over.
13:41The boat began to circle
13:43out of control
13:44with a crew
13:46who could not see
13:46and could not know
13:47whether the hull
13:48was open by a hands-width
13:50or a foot.
13:53Lange had a choice
13:53and both branches were bad.
13:56Stay down, blind,
13:58in a boat that would not steer
13:59and either recover her
14:01or die at 800 feet
14:03with the water coming in.
14:05Or,
14:06surface into an American task group
14:08and try to get his men off
14:09before the guns did their work.
14:11He blew his tanks.
14:1411.22
14:16U-505 came up 700 yards
14:18from Chatelaine
14:19in broad daylight
14:20in the middle
14:21of six American ships.
14:24Everything that could fire,
14:26fired.
14:2720mm,
14:2840mm,
14:29and .50 caliber
14:30from Chatelaine,
14:31Jenks,
14:32and Pillsbury.
14:33And the two Wildcats
14:34came down in strafing runs.
14:36And there is a very specific reason
14:38for that volume of fire.
14:39On the forward deck
14:41of that submarine
14:42sat a heavy gun.
14:43If Germans reached it,
14:45the nearest destroyer escort
14:47was a thin-skinned ship
14:48at point-blank range.
14:50So the Americans
14:51put a wall of steel
14:52across her deck
14:53to keep men off it.
14:54And it worked.
14:56Nobody got to that gun.
14:59Chatelaine also put a torpedo
15:00in the water at her.
15:02It missed.
15:03Lange never made it
15:04off his own bridge upright.
15:05He came out of the
15:07conning tower hatch
15:08into that fire,
15:09was hit badly
15:10about the face and legs,
15:11and went over the side.
15:13His crew followed him,
15:15men jumping into the swells.
15:17One of them,
15:18a signalman
15:18named Gottfried Fischer,
15:20killed.
15:2158 came off her.
15:2458 lived.
15:2611.27.
15:28Five minutes of gunfire,
15:30and gallery ordered ceasefire,
15:32because through the glasses
15:33they could see the Germans
15:34going over the side
15:36and the deck emptying.
15:38And now there was a submarine
15:39on the surface of the Atlantic,
15:41with nobody aboard her,
15:43still under power,
15:44circling at six knots,
15:46going down by the stern.
15:48She should already have been gone.
15:51The German crew
15:52had run their scuttling routine
15:53on the way out,
15:54and in the space
15:55of that last minute,
15:56they had made exactly one mistake.
15:58One detail,
15:59in the dark,
16:00at the very bottom of the boat.
16:03Nobody in the American task group
16:04knew it yet.
16:05Finding it in time
16:07would come down
16:07to one motor machinist,
16:09up to his knees in cold water,
16:11in a compartment
16:12lit by a flashlight.
16:1311.38.
16:15Eleven minutes
16:16after the last gun stopped.
16:19On the bridge of the Pillsbury,
16:21Commander Frederick Hall
16:22gave an order
16:23that no American officer
16:24had given in a shooting war
16:26since the age of sail.
16:28Three words,
16:29over a voice circuit,
16:30on a Sunday morning
16:32off Africa.
16:34Away boarding parties.
16:37And Gallery,
16:38on the carrier,
16:39made the decision
16:40this whole video
16:41is built around.
16:42He had a wounded,
16:44empty enemy warship
16:45in front of him,
16:46and five ships
16:47that could have finished her
16:48without breaking a sweat.
16:50What went out
16:51over the task group circuit instead,
16:53in the profane shorthand
16:54of a man
16:55who had wanted this
16:55for eight weeks,
16:57was that he intended
16:58to take her.
16:59Alive,
17:00if it could be done.
17:02Now watch how strange
17:03the next ten minutes are,
17:05because they do not look
17:06like a battle at all.
17:08They look like
17:09a small boat problem.
17:11The submarine
17:12would not stop.
17:13Her rudder was jammed
17:14hard over,
17:15and her electric motors
17:16were still turning
17:17her shafts,
17:18so she went round and round
17:20at six knots
17:21in a circle
17:21a few hundred yards across,
17:23sinking slowly
17:24by the stern
17:25the whole time.
17:27Pillsbury's whale boat
17:28had to run her down,
17:29and come alongside
17:30a moving hull
17:31with a wet,
17:33curved deck
17:33and no handholds,
17:35in an ocean swell
17:36while the men
17:37in the boat
17:38looked at the thing
17:38they had been briefed
17:39about for seven weeks
17:40and understood
17:42that the briefing
17:42was now over.
17:45David went up
17:46and over first,
17:47then Knispel,
17:48then Vadoviak.
17:49The order they climbed in
17:51is a matter of record,
17:52and it is not
17:53an accident.
17:54The officer,
17:55then a torpedo man,
17:57then a radioman.
17:58The torpedo man
17:59for the charges,
18:01the radioman
18:01for the papers.
18:03Down the ladder
18:04into a boat
18:04lit only by emergency lamps.
18:07I want you to try
18:08to inhabit this
18:09for a second,
18:09because it is one
18:11of the strangest
18:11physical situations
18:13any American
18:14of that war
18:15put himself into.
18:16You are inside
18:17a 250-foot steel pipe
18:20belonging to the enemy.
18:22It is underway,
18:23unmanned,
18:24going in circles.
18:25It is full of German labels
18:27you cannot read.
18:29Somewhere in it,
18:30there is water coming in,
18:31and you can hear it,
18:33but you cannot see where.
18:35Somewhere in it,
18:36according to everything
18:37you have been taught,
18:38there are demolition charges
18:40with the fuses
18:40already pulled,
18:41and the timer,
18:42if there is a timer,
18:44started running
18:45about ten minutes ago.
18:47There may still be
18:48Germans aboard,
18:50and the hatch you came down
18:51is the only way out,
18:53and it is above water
18:54for now.
18:56Nobody tells them to hurry.
18:58Everyone hurries.
19:00Knispel and Vadoviak
19:01went for the radio room,
19:03which is a very short walk
19:04forward of the ladder,
19:05and started stripping it.
19:07Code books,
19:08cipher material,
19:10charts with the boat's
19:11own track
19:12penciled on them,
19:13signal papers,
19:15everything that was paper
19:16and everything in brackets
19:17that looked like equipment,
19:18into bags,
19:19up the ladder,
19:21into the boat.
19:22David went hunting
19:23for the water,
19:24and here is where
19:25the story turns
19:26on one man
19:27with a wrench.
19:29Among the men
19:30who came across
19:30in the following minutes
19:31was Zenon Lukotius,
19:33motor machinist's mate
19:35first class
19:36from Chicago.
19:37He worked his way
19:38aft and down,
19:39and in the bilges
19:40he found what the Germans
19:41had done on their way out.
19:43They had pulled the cover
19:45off a sea strainer,
19:46a six-inch pipe
19:47open to the ocean
19:48in the bottom of the boat.
19:51Six inches
19:51does not sound like much.
19:54Put your hands together
19:55in a circle
19:55and look at the hole
19:56you have made.
19:58Then remember
19:58that on the other side of it
20:00is the Atlantic Ocean,
20:01pushing.
20:02The cover was lying loose
20:04on the deck plates.
20:06Lukotius found it,
20:07got it back onto the pipe,
20:08and got it bolted down.
20:10That is the entire margin.
20:13The whole thing,
20:14the trophy,
20:15the men in the water,
20:17the eleven months,
20:18all of it,
20:19comes down to a German sailor
20:21who left a metal lid
20:22on the floor
20:22instead of taking it with him,
20:24and an American machinist
20:26who spotted it
20:26in a flooded compartment
20:27lit by a flashlight.
20:29They closed valves.
20:30They killed the engines.
20:32They started tracing
20:33the demolition circuits.
20:35And in among the bags of paper
20:37coming up out of the radio room,
20:38somebody handed up
20:40a heavy machine
20:40that looked like a typewriter
20:42in a wooden case
20:43with three rotors in it
20:45and a plug board on the front.
20:47Not one man in that whale boat
20:49knew what it was.
20:51That is what I need you to sit with.
20:54The eight men
20:55who took the greatest
20:56intelligence prize
20:57the United States Navy
20:58captured in the Atlantic War
20:59could not have told you
21:01what they were holding.
21:02They knew it was German,
21:04they knew it was in the radio room,
21:06and their orders said,
21:08take everything.
21:09The machine went into a bag
21:11with the rest,
21:12and the bag went into the boat.
21:14Somebody at a much higher level
21:16knew exactly what it was.
21:18Somebody at a much higher level
21:20was at that very moment
21:22about to become extremely angry.
21:25Because U-505 was still circling.
21:28She was still underway,
21:30still down by the stern.
21:31And now,
21:32she had Americans aboard her.
21:34And the Pillsbury came in
21:35to lay alongside
21:36and get a line onto her.
21:39In the next four minutes,
21:40the destroyer escort
21:41would be the one taking damage.
21:43And it would be the submarine
21:45that did it,
21:4612.15 or so in the afternoon.
21:48The submarine still circling,
21:50Americans aboard her,
21:51and Pillsbury coming in
21:53to get a line on her.
21:54A destroyer escort
21:56is a thin ship,
21:57300 feet of light hull,
21:59built fast and built cheap,
22:01because the war needed
22:02hundreds of them
22:03and needed them that year.
22:05And U-505,
22:08empty,
22:08abandoned,
22:09without a single German
22:11left aboard,
22:12still had her forward
22:13diving planes extended,
22:15two steel wings
22:16sticking straight out
22:17of her bow at the waterline,
22:19edge on,
22:20and she was moving.
22:21The two hulls
22:23came together in the swell.
22:24The submarine's bow planes
22:26went into Pillsbury's side
22:27like a can opener.
22:29Two compartments flooded.
22:31The destroyer escort
22:32had to sheer off
22:33and stop worrying
22:34about the prize
22:35and start worrying
22:36about herself,
22:37with her own damage control parties
22:39running for the shoring
22:40while the U-boat
22:41kept turning
22:42in her slow circle,
22:43unmanned,
22:45having just wounded
22:45an American warship
22:47after her crew
22:48had left her.
22:49Nobody in that task group
22:51ever forgot it.
22:52The joke afterwards,
22:53and it was only half a joke,
22:56was that she was
22:57the only ship in the war
22:58that fought better
22:59with nobody aboard.
23:01Which left Gallery
23:02with a decision
23:03that reads,
23:04on paper,
23:05like something
23:05a court of inquiry
23:06would have enjoyed
23:07very much.
23:08He brought his aircraft
23:10carrier alongside.
23:12Guadalcanal was a small carrier,
23:14an escort carrier,
23:15but she was still
23:16500 feet of ship
23:18with an air group
23:19and a magazine
23:19and about 900 men in her.
23:22And her captain
23:23put her next
23:23to a captured
23:24German submarine
23:25that was down by the stern,
23:27full of water,
23:28and,
23:29as far as anyone aboard
23:30knew at that moment,
23:31rigged with live
23:32demolition charges.
23:34If those charges
23:35had gone off
23:36against her hull,
23:37Daniel Gallery
23:38would be a footnote
23:39in a very different
23:40kind of naval history.
23:42The men he sent across
23:44were the ones
23:44who could answer
23:45the only question
23:46that mattered.
23:47Could she be kept afloat?
23:49The man who ran that job
23:51was Commander Earl Tracino,
23:53Guadalcanal's
23:54engineering officer.
23:55Before the war,
23:56he had been a tanker engineer
23:57for an oil company,
23:58a merchant serviceman
23:59who had spent his working life
24:01inside the guts of ships,
24:02and he came down
24:04that ladder
24:05into an enemy submarine
24:06written in a language
24:07he did not read
24:08and started working out
24:10her plumbing
24:10from first principles.
24:12He found the demolition charges,
24:15thirteen of them,
24:16placed through the length
24:17of the hull.
24:18Thirteen.
24:20Set by a crew
24:21who had every reason
24:22and every minute
24:23they needed.
24:24They pulled the fuses
24:25and went up the ladder,
24:26and not one
24:27of the thirteen fired.
24:30Nobody has ever
24:31fully explained that.
24:32The Americans
24:33who worked their way
24:34past those charges
24:35one at a time
24:36that afternoon
24:37did not know
24:38they were duds.
24:39They knew only
24:40that they had not
24:40gone off yet,
24:42which is a very different
24:43piece of information
24:44when you are the one
24:45leaning over one
24:45with a flashlight
24:46in your teeth.
24:48Tracino disarmed them.
24:50Then he went
24:51after the water.
24:52And then he went
24:53after the rudder,
24:54working his way aft
24:55through the compartments
24:56the Germans had opened.
24:58Meanwhile,
24:59the sea around
25:00the task group
25:00was being cleaned up.
25:02Fifty-eight Germans
25:03came out of the Atlantic
25:04and into American ships.
25:06Their commander,
25:07Harold Lang,
25:08badly wounded
25:09in the face and legs,
25:10was taken into
25:11Guadalcanal's sick bay
25:12where American doctors
25:13went to work on him.
25:15He would keep his life.
25:17He would not
25:18keep one of his legs.
25:20And the prisoners
25:21were locked below.
25:22And one question
25:23was never answered for them.
25:25Every German
25:26in that task group's brig
25:27believed his boat
25:28was on the bottom.
25:30They had opened
25:30the vents themselves.
25:31They had pulled
25:32the strainer cover themselves.
25:34They had set the charges
25:35themselves
25:36and heard nothing.
25:37But a man in the water
25:39does not necessarily
25:40hear a submarine break up.
25:41They had done their duty
25:42as they understood it.
25:44And the one thing
25:45no American would tell them
25:46was what was on
25:48the other side
25:48of the bulkhead
25:49they were sitting against.
25:51Because it was being
25:52towed alongside them.
25:55Now, pause here
25:56because this is the moment
25:58a normal war story ends.
26:00The submarine is taken.
26:01The papers are in the bag.
26:03The wounded are in sick bay.
26:05It is the first enemy warship
26:07boarded and captured at sea
26:09by the United States Navy
26:10since 1815.
26:12And the men who did it
26:14are being clapped on the back
26:15on a flight deck
26:16in the middle of the Atlantic.
26:18It is roughly
26:19one o'clock
26:20in the afternoon
26:21and the hard part
26:22has not started.
26:23Because here is what
26:25Gallery actually had
26:26once the excitement
26:28burned off.
26:29He had a flooded,
26:30powerless,
26:32250-foot
26:33dead weight
26:34tied to the stern
26:35of a carrier.
26:37He had a task group
26:38so low on fuel
26:39that it had already
26:41given up
26:41and pointed itself
26:42at Casablanca
26:43that morning.
26:44He had 600 miles
26:45of open ocean
26:46between him
26:47and the nearest
26:48friendly port
26:49in water
26:50where other German
26:51submarines were working.
26:52And he had a prize
26:54whose value,
26:55every ounce of it,
26:56depended on the enemy
26:57never finding out
26:59it existed.
27:00He had to report it.
27:02And to report it,
27:03he had to put a signal
27:05on the air.
27:06The reply came back fast
27:08and it did not
27:09offer him help.
27:10It refused him
27:11the one port
27:12within reach
27:13and it pointed him
27:14at a patch
27:15of the Atlantic
27:15so far away
27:17that his own
27:18engineers did not
27:19believe the tow
27:20could survive the trip.
27:21The reply from
27:22Atlantic Fleet Headquarters
27:23was six words
27:24of pure institutional
27:26cold water.
27:27Nothing doing on Dakar.
27:29Take her to Bermuda.
27:32Dakar was 600 miles away.
27:34Bermuda was 2,500.
27:37Read that order again
27:38because it is the first place
27:40in this story
27:40where the second question,
27:42the 11 months of silence,
27:43stops being a mystery
27:45and starts being a policy.
27:48Nobody at headquarters
27:49was worried about the tow.
27:51They were worried
27:52about the harbor.
27:54Dakar was a working
27:55allied port
27:55full of French officials,
27:57French dock workers,
27:58merchant crews
27:59of a dozen nationalities,
28:01and every one of them
28:02had eyes.
28:03Tow a German submarine
28:05into that basin
28:06and by the end of the week,
28:07the fact would be in a bar
28:08in Casablanca,
28:09and by the end of the month,
28:11it would be in Berlin.
28:13Bermuda was an American
28:15naval operating base
28:16on an island
28:17where the Navy controlled
28:18the piers,
28:19the gate,
28:19and the mail.
28:21So Gallery got no help,
28:23no shortcut,
28:24and no port.
28:25What he got
28:26was an instruction
28:26to drag his prize
28:28across a third of an ocean
28:29in submarine water
28:31at the speed
28:32of a walking man.
28:33The tow was a nightmare
28:35from the first hour.
28:37Guadalcanal put a wire
28:38on the U-boat's bow,
28:40one and a quarter inch,
28:41and started pulling,
28:42and the submarine
28:43did not follow.
28:45Her rudder was still
28:46jammed hard over,
28:47so she sheared off
28:48to one side
28:49like a dog on a leash
28:51pulling for a fence,
28:52and every time she sheared,
28:54the wire took the load.
28:56It parted.
28:57They put across
28:58a heavier wire,
28:59two and a quarter inch,
29:01and Tresino went down
29:02into the after torpedo room,
29:04got at the steering gear,
29:05and shifted that rudder
29:07by hand
29:07until she would track.
29:09Then he did the thing
29:10that engineers
29:11still tell each other about.
29:13The submarine
29:14was full of water
29:15and dead.
29:17No power,
29:17no pumps,
29:18no compressed air.
29:20Tresino had a whole ocean
29:22of energy
29:22going past the hull
29:23at a few knots,
29:24and no engine to use it.
29:27So he uncoupled
29:28the diesel engines
29:29from the electric motors,
29:30and left the motors
29:32clutched
29:32to the propeller shafts.
29:34Think about what that does.
29:36The boat is being pulled
29:38through the water.
29:39Water pushes
29:41on the propellers.
29:42The propellers
29:43turn the shafts.
29:45The shafts
29:46turn the electric motors.
29:48And an electric motor
29:49turned by something else
29:51is a generator.
29:52So the submarine,
29:54dragged along on a wire,
29:56was quietly making
29:57her own electricity.
29:59That electricity
30:00charged her batteries.
30:02The batteries ran her pumps,
30:04and the pumps
30:05took the sea
30:05back out of her.
30:07And they ran
30:08her air compressors,
30:09and the compressors
30:10blew her ballast tanks.
30:12And day by day,
30:14the boat that had gone
30:14under the waves
30:15came up,
30:16until she rode on the surface
30:18in proper trim.
30:20A German submarine
30:21salvaged herself,
30:22unwillingly,
30:23on a rope,
30:25powered by the American carrier
30:26towing her.
30:27Because a merchant tanker
30:29engineer from a
30:30Pennsylvania oil company
30:31worked out how
30:32to steal the motion.
30:35Now hold that picture
30:36and add a date to it.
30:38June 6, 1944.
30:40Two days after the capture,
30:42while the wire
30:43was still creaking
30:44and men were still
30:45standing watch
30:46inside a wet German hull
30:47with flashlights,
30:495,000 ships went in
30:51on the Normandy beaches.
30:53Nobody on that tow knew.
30:54They were 1,500 miles away,
30:57dragging a submarine
30:58on a task group
30:59radio silence
31:00so tight
31:01that the largest
31:02amphibious operation
31:03in human history
31:05happened without a word
31:06to them about it.
31:07And this is the point
31:09where the two halves
31:10of the story
31:10lock together,
31:11so stay with me.
31:13The paper Knispel
31:14and Vadoviak
31:15had pulled out
31:16of that radio room,
31:17and the machine
31:18in the wooden case
31:19were not souvenirs.
31:21They were the German Navy's
31:23current cipher material,
31:24the settings
31:25and the hardware
31:26behind the signals
31:27that ran every U-boat
31:29in the Atlantic.
31:29The Allies were already
31:31reading a great deal
31:32of that traffic,
31:33at enormous cost
31:34and with agonizing delays.
31:36And the entire structure
31:37rested on one assumption,
31:39that the Germans believed
31:41their cipher was safe.
31:43There is exactly one thing
31:45that breaks that assumption,
31:47evidence that a U-boat
31:48was captured intact.
31:50If Berlin learned
31:51what happened
31:52off Cape Blanco
31:53on June 4th,
31:54the Germans would not
31:55merely change a setting.
31:57They would tear up
31:58the system,
31:59re-key everything,
32:00redesign the machine,
32:01and the Allies
32:02would go blind.
32:03In the same weeks
32:05that convoys
32:06were carrying
32:06an invasion army
32:07across that ocean
32:08and reinforcing it
32:10beach by beach.
32:11So the prize
32:12was worth more
32:13than a submarine.
32:14It was worth
32:15more than the credit.
32:16And it was worth
32:17precisely nothing
32:18if anybody talked.
32:20The Navy went to work
32:21on the evidence itself.
32:23U-505 was given
32:24an American look
32:25and an American name
32:27for the paperwork,
32:28Nemo,
32:29and her German ensign
32:30was taken off her
32:31and kept personally
32:32by the commander-in-chief
32:34of the Atlantic fleet
32:35for the rest of the war.
32:37On June 9th,
32:38the fleet tug Abnaki
32:39took the tow.
32:41And on June 19th,
32:42after two weeks
32:43and 1,700 miles
32:45at the end of a wire,
32:46the boat came
32:47into the great sound
32:48at Bermuda.
32:49The men who brought her in
32:51expected a celebration.
32:53What was waiting for them
32:54was a set of oaths
32:55and word that
32:56in Washington,
32:57the most powerful officer
32:59in the United States Navy
33:00wanted Daniel Gallery
33:02court-martialed
33:02for what he had just done.
33:04Start with the anger
33:05because it is the part
33:07that gets left out
33:07of the museum plaque.
33:10Admiral Ernest King
33:11was Chief of Naval Operations
33:13and Commander-in-Chief
33:14of the United States fleet.
33:16And by most accounts,
33:17he was not a warm man
33:19on his best day.
33:20The historian Clay Blair
33:22records that King
33:23was furious with Gallery,
33:25not delighted,
33:26furious,
33:27and considered having him
33:28court-martialed
33:29for bringing that submarine
33:30in as a prize.
33:32And King was not
33:33being unreasonable.
33:35Look at it from his desk.
33:37A captain out
33:38on his own initiative
33:39had taken an action
33:40that, if it leaked,
33:42would cost the Allies
33:43their reading
33:44of German naval signals
33:45in the exact season
33:46of the invasion.
33:48The gain was real,
33:49but the gain was already banked
33:51the moment the codebooks
33:52came up the ladder.
33:54Everything after that
33:55was pure exposure.
33:583,000 men now knew.
34:0058 Germans now knew
34:02they had been boarded.
34:03Every additional day
34:04the submarine existed
34:05was another day
34:06the secret could get out.
34:07And the secret was worth
34:09more, in King's arithmetic,
34:11than any submarine,
34:12any medal,
34:13and any officer's career.
34:17Gallery kept his command.
34:18But nobody up the chain
34:20was interested
34:20in giving him a parade.
34:22Instead, the Navy
34:23did the only thing
34:24that could hold.
34:25It made 3,000
34:27American sailors and airmen
34:28into keepers of a secret.
34:31Gallery had them told,
34:33ship by ship, why.
34:35That is worth pausing on.
34:38He did not simply
34:39issue a gag order.
34:40The men were given
34:41the reasoning
34:42that lives across
34:43the whole Atlantic
34:44depended on the enemy
34:45believing this had never happened.
34:48And then,
34:49they were required
34:49to carry it.
34:51Understand what that meant
34:52in practice,
34:53because it was not abstract.
34:56It meant,
34:57no letters home.
34:58Not a hint,
35:00not a line about
35:01a strange June morning
35:02off Africa.
35:04Mail from that task group
35:05went through censors
35:06who knew exactly
35:07what to look for.
35:08It meant that the biggest day
35:09of these men's lives
35:10had no story
35:11attached to it.
35:13A sailor goes home
35:14on leave to a small town
35:15where everybody asks
35:16the same question
35:17at the kitchen table.
35:19What have you been
35:20doing out there?
35:21And this sailor,
35:22who had been part
35:23of the only capture
35:24of an enemy warship
35:25at sea by his Navy
35:26in 130 years,
35:29said,
35:30Convoy work.
35:31Nothing much.
35:33It meant that decorations
35:35for that day
35:35arrived with citations
35:37that could not describe
35:37what they were for,
35:39and a unit citation
35:40for the task group
35:41that could not be explained
35:42to anyone.
35:443,000 men.
35:4611 months.
35:48Not one leak.
35:50Now the harder part,
35:52and I am not going to soften it,
35:54because you are not a child
35:55and this channel
35:56does not pretend.
35:58The 58 Germans
35:59went to a prisoner-of-war camp
36:01at Ruston
36:02in northern Louisiana,
36:03and they were kept apart
36:04from every other prisoner
36:05in the United States.
36:07The Red Cross,
36:08whose entire function
36:09is to confirm
36:10that captured men are alive
36:11and to carry their names home,
36:13was refused access to them.
36:15Their names were withheld.
36:17The letters a prisoner
36:18is entitled to write
36:19did not go.
36:20So in Germany,
36:22the German Navy
36:22did the arithmetic
36:23that any Navy does,
36:25with a boat
36:25that stops answering.
36:27U-505 had failed to report.
36:30U-505 was overdue.
36:33U-505 was declared
36:35lost with all hands,
36:37and the letters went out
36:38to 59 families,
36:40telling them that their son,
36:41their husband,
36:42their brother,
36:43was dead.
36:45He was not dead.
36:46He was in Louisiana,
36:48eating three meals a day,
36:49alive.
36:50And the United States Navy
36:52knew the letters were going out
36:53and let them go out,
36:54because a name released
36:56to the Red Cross in Geneva
36:57was a name that could reach Berlin.
36:59And one live name
37:01from U-505
37:02would have told
37:03German intelligence
37:04that the boat
37:05had not gone down
37:06the way the survivors
37:07were supposed to have
37:08gone down with her.
37:09Those families grieved
37:10for men who were alive.
37:12Some of them grieved
37:13for nearly a year.
37:15The crew was not sent home
37:16until 1947.
37:19That is the true price
37:20of the 11 months.
37:22And it was paid by people
37:23who never got a vote on it.
37:26What it bought
37:27is the other half of the ledger,
37:28and it went to work
37:30almost immediately.
37:31The cipher material
37:33went to naval intelligence.
37:34The submarine herself
37:36was taken apart
37:37by American engineers
37:38who had never had
37:39a complete, undamaged,
37:41current German boat
37:42to walk through.
37:43And her torpedoes,
37:45the acoustic torpedoes
37:46designed to home
37:47on the propeller noise
37:48of an escort,
37:49the weapon that had been
37:50killing destroyer escorts
37:52exactly like Pillsbury,
37:53went to the underwater
37:55sound laboratory
37:56at Harvard,
37:57where the people
37:58whose job was to defeat them
37:59finally had one
38:00on a bench
38:01in one piece
38:03with the manual.
38:05Everything the Germans
38:06had spent years hiding
38:07sat in American workshops.
38:10And the Germans
38:11went on transmitting,
38:12patrol after patrol,
38:14in the belief
38:15that nothing had changed.
38:16For 11 months,
38:18the whole enormous business
38:20held.
38:21Then,
38:22in May of 1945,
38:24Germany surrendered,
38:25and the reason
38:26for the silence
38:27simply evaporated.
38:29The Navy released the story
38:30on the 16th of May.
38:33Photographs,
38:33headlines,
38:34the works.
38:35And the officer
38:36who had gone down
38:36that ladder first,
38:38the man the whole thing
38:39had turned on,
38:40had four months
38:41left to live.
38:42And he would not live
38:43to be handed the medal
38:44his country had already
38:45decided to give him.
38:46May 16th, 1945.
38:49Nine days after Germany
38:51surrendered,
38:52the Navy let it out.
38:54The photographs
38:55went to the papers,
38:56the whale boat alongside,
38:57the men on that wet deck,
38:59the submarine under tow
39:01behind an American carrier.
39:02And across the United States,
39:04in kitchens
39:05and on porches,
39:06families finally found out
39:08what their sons
39:08had been doing
39:09on the 4th of June,
39:10the year before.
39:12Some of those men
39:13were still at sea
39:14in the Pacific by then.
39:15Some were home.
39:17All of them
39:18had been carrying it
39:19silently for 11 months.
39:21And it came out
39:22in a newspaper
39:23rather than
39:24in their own voices.
39:25The German crew
39:26went home in 1947
39:28to families
39:29who had already
39:30held services for them.
39:32Harold Lange
39:32lost a leg
39:33to the wounds
39:34he took on that
39:35conning tower
39:35and lived the rest
39:37of his life
39:37as the officer
39:38whose boat
39:39was the one
39:39the Americans
39:40took whole.
39:42The war's
39:43most closely guarded prize
39:44was, to him,
39:46an ordinary Sunday
39:47that went wrong
39:48at 10 past 11.
39:50But the last word here
39:51belongs to the men
39:52who went down that ladder.
39:54So let me give you
39:55what happened to them.
39:57Xenon Lukosius,
39:58the machinist
39:59who found the strainer cover
40:00lying on the deck plates,
40:01got the Silver Star
40:02and went home to Chicago.
40:05Arthur Nispel
40:06and Stanley Wadoviak,
40:07the two who followed
40:08their officer into the boat
40:09and came out
40:10with the code books,
40:11both received
40:12the Navy Cross.
40:14Albert David
40:15never got his.
40:17He came home,
40:18he stayed in the Navy,
40:19and on the 17th of September,
40:211945,
40:22with the whole war over,
40:24both oceans quiet,
40:26he died of a heart attack
40:27in Norfolk, Virginia.
40:29He was 43.
40:31The country had already
40:33decided what he was owed.
40:34The paperwork simply
40:36had not caught up with him.
40:38On the 5th of October,
40:39at the White House,
40:41President Truman
40:41put the Medal of Honor
40:42into the hands of his widow,
40:44Linda May David.
40:45It is the only Medal of Honor
40:47awarded to a sailor
40:48of the Atlantic Fleet
40:49in the Second World War.
40:51One,
40:52in six years
40:53of the longest campaign
40:54of the war,
40:54and it went to a 41-year-old
40:56engineering officer
40:57who had spent two decades
40:58as an enlisted man
41:00and who volunteered
41:01to be the first man
41:02down a hole
41:03in a sinking enemy submarine.
41:05The boat outlived them all.
41:08After the war,
41:09the Navy intended
41:09to use her
41:10as a gunnery target,
41:11and Daniel Gallery,
41:13who had wanted
41:13to capture her
41:14when everyone else
41:15wanted to sink her,
41:16spent years fighting
41:18to keep her
41:18from being sunk after all.
41:20In 1954,
41:22they towed her up the lakes
41:23to Chicago
41:24and set her ashore,
41:25and she is still there,
41:27dedicated not as a trophy,
41:29but as a memorial
41:30to the American sailors
41:31who were lost at sea
41:32in that war
41:33and never came back
41:34to any harbor.
41:36So,
41:37the answer to the question
41:38we started with.
41:39The order was
41:40to take her,
41:41not sink her,
41:42because by June of 1944,
41:44the American Navy
41:45had learned something
41:46that no amount of tonnage
41:48could buy.
41:49Knowing what the enemy
41:50was saying
41:50was worth more
41:52than one more sinking.
41:53And 3,000 men
41:55kept quiet
41:55for 11 months
41:56for exactly the same reason.
41:58Because a victory
42:00you are allowed
42:00to talk about
42:01is worth one submarine.
42:03And a victory
42:04nobody talks about
42:05was worth a whole ocean.
42:08Everything rested
42:09on a 6-inch pipe
42:10in the bilges
42:11of an enemy boat,
42:12and on a lieutenant
42:13from Missouri
42:14who went down the ladder
42:15into the dark
42:16without knowing
42:17whether the 13 charges
42:18under his feet
42:19had 10 minutes left
42:21or 10 seconds.
42:23Thank you for staying
42:24with this one to the end.
42:25If it was worth your time,
42:27take a moment
42:27and hit the like button.
42:29It genuinely helps
42:30this story reach
42:31other people
42:31who care about it.
42:33And subscribe
42:33and turn on the bell
42:35so you don't miss
42:36the next one.
42:36Are you watching
42:37from the United States?
42:38The United Kingdom?
42:40Canada?
42:41Australia?
42:43Tell me in the comments.
42:45And if your father,
42:46your grandfather,
42:47or your uncle
42:48served in the Second World War,
42:50put his name
42:51and his unit
42:51or his ship
42:52down below.
42:54Write it out.
42:54That is how a name
42:56like Albert David
42:57and the eight men
42:58who went aboard with him
42:59doesn't disappear
43:01into silence.
43:01Let's...
43:02Let's...
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