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voor de liefhebbers van u-boat docu"s :)

Capture of the U-505
by J. David Rogers
1 pdf


One of the more bizarre aspects of having served as a naval officer aboard submarines is that, for many of us, the U-505 was usually the first submarine we ever saw or boarded! That is a typical wardroom joke aboard subs, and was true for me as well. I visited the U-505 in 1961 at age 7, and it was the only sub I had ever seen up close prior to joining the Navy! As an adult I would eventually visit World War II era fleet subs open to the public at Pearl Harbor, San Francisco, Charleston, Philadelphia, Fall River, and even a Soviet Romeo class sub in Long Beach. There aren’t any modern era nuclear powered subs to visit because these are scuttled in deep ocean areas because of the radiation hazards.
The capture of U-505 was certainly unique in the annals of naval history. It was the first warship commandeered by the US Navy since War of 1812, and the only vessel captured intact and towed home during World War II. It was cornered by an Antisubmarine Hunter-Killer Task Group 22.3 built around the escort carrier USS Guadalcanal. The Guadalcanal was a small aircraft carrier, only 498 feet long. Called “Jeep Carriers” by the Navy, all 50 units of the Casablanca Class escort carriers were built by Kaiser Shipyards over S-4 merchant hulls during a single year, in 1943-44. Their primary purpose was convoy escort, anti-submarine warfare, support of amphibious landings, and overseas transport of land-based aircraft. Escort carriers usually operated with five destroyer escorts when employed as ASW hunter-killer task groups. Task Group 22.3’s escorts were: USS Pillsbury (DE 133), USS Chatalain (DE 149), USS Flaherty (DE 135), USS Jenks (DE 665), and USS Pope (DE 134).

Thanks to Witch :)