Eeeeee's back!!
Well got home last night. Had a blast the enitre time. Chi-town is a fun place. Would live there though,....too many people and piss poor drivers.
Did find enough time to make it out to the Museum of Sceince and Industry after all. Paid full price for less than an hours worth of time......but hey what could you do?.
Ended up getting a personal tour of the U-505 separate from the others for a "small" donation to the museum. Was great.
I'll be the 1st to admit my camera sucks Micronesian monkey balls when it come to shooting in dark museums
To keep it avaition related.
On 10 November 1942, the U-505 was damage heavily in an air attack by a Lockheed Hudson aircraft of No. 53 Squadron RAF. The aircraft was shot down or damaged by her own bombs and crashed in the attack. The U-boat was damaged so heavily that the remainder of it's patrol was aborted and headed back to Lorient for repairs.
Capture of U-505
On 4 June 1944, United States Navy Task Group 22.3 (TG 22.3) captured U-505, the first time a US Navy vessel had captured an enemy at sea since 1815, when USS Peacock seized HMS Nautilus during the War of 1812.
The anti-sub task force
The action took place in the Atlantic Ocean, at 21¡ã30¡äN 19¡ã20¡äW / 21.5, -19.333 (U-505), about 150 miles (241 km) off the coast of Rio De Oro, Africa. The American force was commanded by Captain Daniel V. Gallery, USN, and comprised the escort aircraft carrier USS Guadalcanal (CVE-60), and five destroyer escorts under Commander Frederick S. Hall, USN: Pillsbury (DE-133), Pope (DE-134), Flaherty (DE-135), Chatelain (DE-149), and Jenks (DE-665).
Alerted by Allied cryptanalysts, who had decrypted the German naval Enigma code "Shark", the Guadalcanal task group knew U-boats were operating off the African coast near Cape Verde. They did not know the precise location, however, because the coordinates in the message were encoded separately before being enciphered for transmission. By using high-frequency direction-finding fixes (HF/DF, pronounced "Huff-Duff") and air and surface reconnaissance, the Allies could narrow down a U-boat's location. The Guadalcanal task group intended to use all these methods to find and capture the next U-boat they detected.
Depth charge attack
The task group sailed from Norfolk, Virginia, on 15 May 1944, for an anti-submarine patrol near the Canary Islands. For two weeks they searched unsuccessfully, steaming as far south as Freetown, Sierra Leone. On Sunday, 4 June 1944, with fuel running low, the warships reluctantly turned north and headed for Casablanca. Ten minutes later, at 11:09, Chatelain, Lt. Cmdr. Dudley S. Knox, USNR commanding, made sonar contact on an object just 800 yards (700 m) away on her starboard bow. Guadalcanal immediately swung clear at top speed to avoid getting in the way, as Chatelain and the other escorts closed the position.
In the minutes required to identify the contact definitely as a submarine, however, Chatelain closed too rapidly and could not attack¡ªher depth charges would not sink fast enough to intercept the U-boat. The escort held her fire, opened range and set up an attack with her hedgehog battery. Regaining sonar contact after a momentary loss due to the short range, Chatelain passed beyond the submarine and swung around toward it to make a second attack with depth charges.
As the ship heeled over in her tight turn, one of
two Wildcat fighter planes launched overhead by Guadalcanal, sighted the submerged U-boat and dived on it, firing into the water to mark the submarine's position. Chatelain steadied up on her sound bearing and moved in for the kill. A full pattern of depth charges set for a shallow target splashed into the water around the U-boat. As their detonations threw geysers of spray into the air, a large oil slick spread on the water; the fighter plane overhead radioed "You struck oil! Sub is surfacing!"[cite this quote] Six and one-half minutes after Chatelain's first attack, U-505 broke the surface with its rudder jammed, lights and electrical machinery out, and water coming in.
Surface action
As the submarine broached only 700 yards (600 m) from Chatelain, the escort opened fire with all automatic weapons that would bear and swept the U-boat's decks. Pillsbury, Lieutenant George W. Casselman, USNR, and Jenks, Lieutenant Commander Julius F. Way, USN, farther away, and the two
Wildcats overhead all joined the shooting and added to the intense barrage. Wounded in the torrent of fire and believing that his submarine had been mortally damaged by Chatelain's depth charges, the commanding officer of U-505 quickly ordered his crew to abandon ship. So quickly was this command obeyed that scuttling measures were left incomplete and the submarine's engines continued to run.
The jammed rudder caused the partially-submerged U-505 to circle to the right at a speed near 7 knots (13 km/h). Seeing the U-boat turning toward him, the commanding officer of Chatelain ordered a single torpedo fired at the submarine in order to forestall what appeared to be a similar attack on himself. The torpedo passed ahead of U-505, which by now appeared to be completely abandoned. About two minutes later, the escort division commander ordered cease fire and called away Pillsbury's boarding party.
Salvage operations
While Chatelain and Jenks picked up survivors, Pillsbury sent its motor whaleboat to the circling submarine where Lieutenant (junior grade) Albert David led the eight-man party on board. Despite the risk of U-505 sinking or blowing up at any minute and not knowing what form of resistance they might meet below, David and his men clambered up the conning tower and then down the hatches into the boat itself. After a quick examination proved the U-boat was completely deserted (except for one dead man on deck¡ªthe only fatality of the action), the boarders set about bundling up charts, codebooks, and papers, disconnecting demolition charges, closing valves, and plugging leaks. By the time the flood of water had been stopped, the U-boat was low in the water and down by the stern.
Meanwhile, Pillsbury twice went alongside the turning submarine to put over tow lines and each time the escort's side was pierced by the U-boat's bow plane. Finally, with three compartments flooded, she was forced to haul clear to attend to her own damage. The boarding party was then reinforced by a party from Guadalcanal. Led by Commander Earl Trosino, USNR, Chief Engineer of the Guadalcanal and a pre-war Merchant Marine chief engineer with Sunoco, the carrier's men completed temporary salvage measures, and took a towline from Guadalcanal. The salvage crew was later joined by Commander Colby G. Rucker, USN, who arrived with the seaplane tender Humbolt (AVP-21).
In an ingenious solution to the heavy flooding, under Trosino's direction the salvage crew disconnected the boat's diesels from her motors. This allowed the propellers to turn the shafts while under tow. After setting the main switches to charge the batteries, Guadalcanal towed the U-boat at high speed, turning the electric motors over and causing them to function as generators. This enabled the salvors to recharge the submarine's batteries. With power restored, the salvage crew could use the U-boat's own pumps and air compressors to finish pumping out seawater and bring her up to full surface trim. Gallery always credited Trosino's vast knowledge of marine engineering, far greater than the average naval officer's, with enabling the task group to keep the boat after they captured her.
After three days of towing, Guadalcanal was relieved of her burden by the fleet tug Abnaki (ATF-96). Arriving with the tug was the tanker Kennebec (AO-36), sent to provide much-needed fuel to the task group. On Monday, 19 June 1944, U-505 was brought into Port Royal Bay, Bermuda, after a tow of 1,700 miles (2,740 km). U-505 was kept there in secrecy until the end of World War II.
The museum's Spitfire and Stuka. Question is the Stuka restored? Or just merely repainted? I noticed a heck of a gash on it's belly
Racer
I have an old picture of an A-7 Corsair II in the museum some where but I didn't have enough time to search it out.
Shay
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Semper Fortis
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