German submarine U - 505 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 . 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 . In her uniquely unlucky career with the " Kriegsmarine " , she also had distinction of being the " most heavily damaged U - boat to successfully return to port " in World War II ( on her fourth patrol ) and the only submarine in which a commanding officer in combat conditions ( on her tenth patrol , following six botched patrols ) . " U - 505 " is one of four German World War II U - boats that survive as museum ships , and one of two Type IXCs still in existence , the other being . History prior to capture . " 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 . She conducted twelve patrols in her career , sinking eight ships totaling 44 , 962tons . Three of these were American , two British , one Norwegian , one Dutch and one Colombian . 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 circumnavigate d 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 . 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 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 the mid - Atlantic but suffered little damage . 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 . " U - 505 " then returned to Lorient on 25 August after 80 days on patrol without being attacked . " 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 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 made water - tight after almost two weeks of repair work . After sending the wounded watch officer to the supply submarine ( " milk cow " ) , " U - 505 " limped back to Lorient on reduced power , earning the distinction of being the " most heavily damaged U - boat to successfully return to port " . 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 . " 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 . 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 that 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 . " 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 crossing 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 . 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 . Experts have speculated that 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 , although this is disputed by some crew members . 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 , sunk on 28 December by British cruisers in the Bay of Biscay . 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 . 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 , and five destroyer escort s under Commander Frederick S . Hall : , , , , and . 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 , about off the coast of Río de Oro . The sonar contact was only 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 . " Chatelain " was so close to " U - 505 " that depth charges would not sink fast enough to intercept the U - boat , so instead she fired Hedgehog s before passing the submarine and turning to make a follow - up attack with depth charges . 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 ! " Less than seven minutes after " Chatelain " s first attack began , the badly damaged " U - 505 " surfaced less than away . " 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 . 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 . With the engines still functioning and the rudder damaged by depth charges , " U - 505 " circled clockwise at approximately . 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 " . Salvage operations . 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 . 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 from " Guadalcanal " rigged a towline from the aircraft carrier to the U - boat . 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 . After three days of towing , " Guadalcanal " transferred " U - 505 " to the fleet tug . On Monday , 19 June , " U - 505 " entered Port Royal Bay , Bermuda , after a tow of . 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 . 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 . 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 . 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 . 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 . 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 . " " 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 " . Museum ship . 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 . 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 . 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 in Detroit , Michigan in the summer of 1954 . 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 . " 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 . 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 . 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 ; 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 in the 1990s .