[masraum]

Originally Posted by daepp

And they succeeded in securing the sub and the enigma machine etc inside. Some of my earliest memories are of my father's friend talking about the seamanship it took to get it to Lake Michigan and the engineering work he'd helped with to get it out of the lake and into the Chicago Museum of Science & Industry. I finally got to see it in 2017.














The Germans opened the valve (sea chest) above and came very close to sinking her so the Americans couldn't get her secrets. It turned out that there were a few first generation American of German decent in the US Navy at that time who could read some of the controls, and by towing U505 they were able to recharge her batteries by windmilling the prop, and then they could pump out all the water and get her to float properly.

Very, very cool. THanks for the additional info. My dad was in the Navy. 95% of his service had nothing to do with boats or ships, but to make rank, he put in some sea time and chose boats (submarines) because as he liked to say, there were targets and there were submarines. He only spent 4-8 weeks out at a time vs some of the more full time guys that spent months out.



He said that going through ^that^ maneuver when you were in the head was an experience.