Ear on Chicago; U 505 II German Submarine; Part 2

This is Hugh Hill, speaking from aboard the U -505, a captured German submarine taken by the United States Navy on June 4, 1944. Last week on this program, you heard part one of the story of how the Museum of Science and Industry conducts tours aboard this captured German submarine. Now we are going to tell you the story, part two of the tour. I'm going to be talking to Dick Frytag, supervisor of the demonstrators on the U -505. By the way, this boat, as Dick will call it, instead of a ship, is a German submarine and was the first man of war actually boarded and captured since the war of 1812. And the U -505 is on display at the Museum of Science and Industry for the public to see. We are standing now in the captain's quarters, and actually this is the brains of the submarine. For right to our left is the sound equipment that they used to detect other ships in the area, and over here to the right is the radio man's quarters, and of course the captain is right here. Now, Dick, the captain, I assume, sleeps in this bunk right here to my left and keeps his personal

effects in these cabinets up above. That's correct. This is the captain's quarters, and any of his own personal equipment will be kept right here, what little privacy he has, which isn't much. Dick, I noticed that you have some uniforms, some leather jackets, and some hats off to the right here in a sort of a closet, a glass enclosed closet. Now, and then there's an iron cross up there, is all this authentic? The uniforms are authentic, but they are not the original, they are not the original skipper's uniforms, but from other German submarine sailors who donated to sort of renovate this exhibit. And the iron cross? The iron cross came from another ex -German submarine sailor who helped us out. Helped us out after the war, you mean? After the war. What about these guns here? Two of them. These two hand machine guns, one is called a smizer, SCHMEISSER, and the other is a mauser, and one is a clip -fed hand machine gun, and the other is a drum fed and they're 9mm, and a very wicked looking gun, as you can

see. Now, Dick, as I said, we're standing right next to the captain's quarters, and this is the brains of the ship, or the boat, let's get back to calling it a boat, as I should. Now, here is the radio room. Why don't you and I step in here, I'll walk in first, Dick, and we can explain exactly what goes on in here. Now, before you go into any of the technical aspects of this room, I want to point out that they have a Vectrola in here, the old wind -up kind, and Dick, if you'll be so kind as to put on a German record, what one are you going to put on? Well, we have one here, it's Lily Marlene, it's in German, well that's good, that's a second world war number, so Dick has already wound up the machine, it's a wind -up crank -type machine, now he's winding it up now, and he's about ready to put the needle to the grooves here, and we're going to hear Lily Marlene in German, now of course, the sailors aboard this submarine during wartime would be able to hear this record. I guess throughout the boat, listen. Okay, Dick, thanks a million, of course, that is a

World War I vintage machine, as far as we were concerned, we had much better machines, perhaps they did too, but let's move on from the recreation of the boat to some of the activity that goes on in this room now. You tell us about it, right behind you is what we call the radio directional finder, this equipment is on the 360 degree bearings, so that it could pick up enemy radio signals while I'm the surface, while this submarine was on the surface, and whichever beam was coming in the strongest on this bearing, then if they thought that they could make the attack run, go in and get them, then they would go after this particular bearing, and of course, in this particular case, why at sea you always tried to keep radio silence, but many times it was impossible to do so, and the Germans could pick this up through this system right here. Then of course, you have your other set where you can send out, transmit and receive your radio calls from the homeland in Germany, Admiral Donuts had a special setup, whereby he could of course contact any one of

his submarines out at sea at any time, and they themselves in a special wave length could get back to him. This whole system here, as you can see, is quite complicated. Yes, and very useful indeed for the Germans, in World War II. Now we're moving out of the radio room, and we're going over here to what Dick described to me a little while ago as the sound room. Now I'm going to let him take over once again. We won't go inside of this room, Dick, but we can see it from out here, and you go ahead and tell us about it. The sound room here is a very important part of the submarine. We know that once the submarine submerges it no longer can use the radio or radar, so now it must rely on the sound equipment for its eyes and ears. Underwater sound, because of this underwater sound, water being such a sound conductor, we know that sound travels approximately 4800 feet a second. This system here that we're looking at right now receives the underwater sounds, and on the bearings again, we'll let the sound man know what area that this underwater sound is coming from, and also it can tell by the sounds what type

of ship it is. For instance, if it's a merchant ship, it has a beat like or if it's a destroyer, so he can pick this up, transmit the order to the skipper, and tell them what they have picked up, and then of course it is up to the captain to take over. And we know that many of the underwater sea creatures make noises such as a school of fish going by very similar to the screws of this destroyer. They'll go by and go and the sound man must learn to differentiate between the underwater sea noises and the actual screw noises of a ship, or a whale's tail beating makes that same beat of a merchant ship's screws. I understand a good sound man can pick it up in a matter of seconds. A good sound man must be able to pick it up in a matter of seconds, he at this particular point is now really running this submarine. Okay, Dick, go on to the next stop we're going to make is the galley, so let's move on down there. Well, Dick, over here you have your left hand on it, is the stove. What is that the heat for that stove gas? No, this is electric range, it receives its power from the batteries, the

batteries which supply the energy throughout the submarine are used also to supply the energy to the motors for propulsion when under the water, for your lighting, for electric pumps throughout the submarine itself, and these two huge batteries of 62 cells each have quite a responsibility. Well, now you have some kettles on the stove, is it ready to prepare some food here? Well, actually, as we can, as we stand here, notice how small this galley is, we don't have any food in at the present time, but the food here is prepared for the whole crew three times a day. They put out food for the men, and as you can see as we look around here, isn't much room for the men to sit down and eat. They would bring their mess kits in here and get their rations and go any place in the submarine, sit on the deck wherever it was handing to eat their chow at the time that the chow was put out. And how many men are aboard a submarine? How many men were aboard this one? There were 59 men aboard this submarine when it was captured, and these 59 men, there was only one man who was killed,

and the rest of the men were brought to Bermuda, and kept there until the end of the war, and then sent back to Germany. Where is the captain of the of the Viyu boat? The captain, who is now a captain, his name is Langa, by the way, LNGE, is in Hamburg, Germany, and he is back with the rising West German Navy, and he has a big home, a 30 acre fruit farm now outside of Hamburg, and he is not too interested with World War II or the happenings of the U -505, our museum director, Mr. McMaster, had gone over their last year to have a talk with him about having him visit the submarine come back and see it, but he said he wasn't too interested. Now, you said there were 59 men aboard, and this is a very small galley indeed. The soul over here has, I think, three plates, or maybe it's only two, and then over here, I guess this is the sink, isn't it? This is your sink, and your hand pump here you'll notice for your water to pump your fresh water into the sink for washing your dishes, or whichever it should be. This is a long time, since this has been used,

it isn't actually working. No, it isn't working right now, of course, but there are many things, by the way, on the U -505, which actually do work. Oh, definitely, right behind us, the refrigerator, which I had just shown you, is back in working condition. We have it working, we have the chillbox working in the submarine, the diesel engines, as I told you last week, and our signal communication systems are working throughout the submarine. By the way, talking about signal communications, as we did last week, we actually talked into one of those speaking tubes, and mentioned that one of the tubes goes into the galley, and here is the other end of it, right here. This is the end, right here, you know, that's right. Right over the sink, I don't know if that has any significance. None that I know, probably in this small galley, it's the easiest way for the cook to answer back. Now Dick and I have moved up here where there are some bunks to the right of us, and just forward are the torpedoes, and the torpedo room I assume, and off to the left is the exit for the guests and the visitors who come aboard the U -505, and there is a group right here in

front of us now. But Dick did something, as we moved into the room here, which was extremely interesting, and which I am going to ask him to do again. They have a tape recording of the actual diving operations. How did you get this tape recording? This tape recording was made up all about a year ago with the help of two, three ex -German submarine sailors who are now living in this country, and we thought it would be a good thing to show the children, and not only the children, but the adults as they came through the submarine, just what the crash dive alarm, the sounds, the men giving their orders on a crash dive in a German submarine navy, and it's proved the fact a lot of people are really interested in listening to the commands as they're giving. Can we hear them? Let's turn it on. It's a sound of scuffling

feet. That's sound of feet, and engines being turned off. You got everything on there, but Hyl Hitler. Everything but Hyl Hitler. Okay, Dick, thanks. That's very interesting. You actually then can play that for the visitors onboard the U505. Here, let them hear the actual diving operations as they would have been given in German. In German, that is correct, and it's quite an airy thing. One child said to me one day to walk through here, and you almost think that the German submarine sailor is standing right over you. Yeah. Well, now right to the right of his eyes, I mentioned are some bunks. These are where the sailors sleep at night. That is correct. This rumor standing in this called the Petty Officer Corpter will notice to the left where the bunks have been

taken down for the convenience of the public to walk out of the submarine. In this rumor, 12 bunks. Actually, there are 34 bunks in this whole submarine. So the men would have to sleep in shifts. We call it hot bunking because these bunks never have a chance to cool off. One man would come off watch his friend would have to grab the bunking. He'd have to sleep in his friend's place. So they slept in shifts and they ate in shifts on the submarine. Dick Neal down here with me are a little way. I want to look at what is probably among the most important things on the submarine. And that's the power, the batteries. Now we can look down here and they have a little sign indicating electric storage batteries, 170 volts. Now they have opened up this and made it a wire mesh and we can look down and see those batteries. Is this actually the way it is on a submarine if you've done this for purposes of display? Well, this opening that we're looking through here has been cut away for the convenience of the public again. Right behind us is a hatch which normally would open to go down below into the battery well. There are two batteries on this submarine. The

after battery is through the officer's quarters which we have come through. And these batteries are the same type of batteries that are in your car. They're led plate batteries that have to be watered and charged more often, of course, about every two to three days. They supply the energy to the motors for running while submerged and for the other operating equipment on the submarine that I mentioned earlier. But also it helps to determine the amount of time the submarine can stay under. And this type of submarine could stand around 24 to 30 hours using the juice from these batteries. You were telling me before Dick a very interesting thing that when the water is put in the batteries, somebody slides along this trough here and puts the battery, puts the battery water in and it's a very hot operation. It is a very hot operation. It's a job I did in our submarine so I really know what it's like. This platform slides on dollies and there's a rubber hose down below which attaches to fresh water gravity tanks and the man the electrician would lie in his stomach

on this platform and water the cells of the battery. And these batteries throughout a terrific amount of heat, sometimes getting as high up to 130 degrees Fahrenheit. It's a very good place to lose weight. I can imagine. Well now Dick, why don't you and I move up forward a little bit away from the batteries and looking through a large opening, we can see the torpedoes. Let's move up here. Now off to the right here is we look through this round opening. We can see a torpedo hanging off to the right, painted gray and up forward it looks like it's a yellow color. And then off to the left looks like a torpedo where the torpedo goes through the tube. That's right. Here this is a forward torpedo room. There are actually two torpedoes in the submarine after and forward. In here there are four torpedo tubes and this shows the system of loading the torpedoes. The torpedo we just talked about on the i -beam is in the process of being put into the torpedo tube. The lower right hand corner, the lower right hand tube shows the torpedo in the tube. The lower left tube shows a torpedo in with the piston and

diaphragm behind it. And then the upper left tube shows the opening where the torpedo had just gone out of that particular tube. How many torpedoes can be fired out of this one in four? Well four can be fired almost simultaneously from the forward torpedo room. This room does hold eight torpedoes. The after torpedoes hold four and up in the main deck they carried ten more torpedoes stored in pressure proof water tight canister. How in the world do they load a torpedo on a boat like this? Well the first get the torpedo into the torpedo room. There's a slanted hatch we're looking at is this ladder here and the torpedoes are lowered down onto the i -beam. Then the torpedoes are ratcheted. There's a handle on the side of the torpedo up here which ratchets the torpedo into the tube itself. I see. The tubes always being kept loaded. Well they were firing torpedoes out of here during the war weren't they? They sure were. They sank a lot of shipping. You told me last week but I think it'd be wise to repeat it. How much shipping did this you boat actually sink? They sank 42

,000 tons of Allied shipping. One of the ships were one of our merchant ships actually eight ships and total of all. And actually this isn't as big a record as many German submarines made but still it's impressive when you think of the men who went down on these ships. Let's go over here now. There's something else that's extremely interesting that I want to talk to you about Dick and that's this cutaway here now. Now off to the left and off to the right. The Museum of Science and Industry has cut away from the hull of the ship of the boat to show you the tanks on the inside. One to the right and one to the left. Now why don't you just tell us what happens in these tanks here? I'd be glad to you. The exit part here which we've cut through the submarine normally you wouldn't have a chance to see but because of this cutaway for the people to get out you can notice there are two hulls. The double hull construction which is typical of all submarines and the space between the two hulls is used for the storage of fuel ballast for your fuel ballast tanks and water for your water ballast and we're standing by a water ballast tank at the present time.

Now you just let me interrupt you here, now your fuel is guarded, the tank is guarded by this what is it? Half inch, three quarter inch steel here. Three quarter inch sheeting of steel but the outer edge is only what is that? A half quarter. That's a quarter inch and that covers the water tanks. Well you don't call them tanks, what do you call them? Well you can call them tank or bunker. We usually call them fuel bunkers for the fuel ballast tanks. Now the way the ship submarine is submerged is to fill outside tank here with water, is that right? That's right these tanks actually run from the bow to the stern of the submarine and almost like a horseshoe around it and to make the submarine heavy enough to submerge the water comes in these openings we see down below us into the tanks. The air that has been trapped between the hulls while we're on the surface now has to be vented or relieved from the top of this tank by a vent valve and as soon as the air is released the water comes in by suction and gravity making the submarine heavy enough to go down and as we

talked last week about the ballast stern diving planes this is where these planes start controlling the angle of dive of the submarine now that the water is in. And when this boat wants to come out of the water I assume that the water is blown out of these tanks. And very correct right here we can see a three quarter inch hole right up near the top of the tank compressed air is used and this compressed air is stored in tanks up in the main deck and then the distribution of the air is used from the control room and the compressed air blows this water back out of the same openings the water came in it's a terrific amount of pressure around three thousand pounds per square inch. Well now dick going back to June 4th 1944 they had to come to the surface when the ship was when they keep calling it a ship because I've been informed by many sailors that call everything a ship but you fellas call it a boat so I'll go along with that now when the boat was submerged on on June 4th 1944 they had to

blow the water out of these tanks to get up right and it's correct but in the pictures I saw only the front are forward part of the of the boat came up out of the water you would ask a question like that but it is easily answered in this respect they still had to surface the submarine so that the men could get out but at the same time they'd open the sea valve so that the submarine would start sinking and from the time that the submarine broke the water was just enough for the men to get off of the submarine and while they were coming off the submarine it should have been sinking faster but they just didn't open the valve wide enough so it took a little time in the back end of the submarine as the movie shows here at the museum was almost completely underwater just the bow was showing so the men came out of the conning tower the conning tower was above water and the forward part of the boat was above water and the rear part of the boat was below waters that is right and as I understand a dick you can correct me if I'm wrong if the American sailors would have had to wait for a matter of two more minutes the entire boat would have gone down that's very

true there wasn't much time only they didn't know it at that time and it was just a matter of two three minutes that the submarine would have been completely submerged for good and as you told me last week a young boy from Chicago he's not young anymore but he was then a sailor it was the lad who covered up that hatch to keep the water from coming in that is correct Zeland Lakosius is his name he's a south side boy he's a rougher today in the city of Chicago and he's paid us quite a few visits here at the museum to go back and look over this trophy of war which he helped to capture you know it's amazing thing to to think how those men came down into the submarine I understand dick that not one of them had ever been in a submarine before and major lore was telling me major Lennox lore who heads up the museum of science and industry was telling me that if you go up on top of the submarine and look down through the hatch down to the very bottom that it looks like a tremendous distance down there does it oh it sure does just looking down that hatch these boys must have wondered what they're really getting themselves into because it is a great depth is almost

30 feet of climbing through these double hatches to get down to the main inside of the submarine and for in this particular case since those boys did not know anything about a submarine and myself having been a submarine sailor I just don't know where they got the courage to do it well deck I think we've taken the entire tour now we started last week telling about the submarine U505 which was captured by the American Navy under Admiral Gallery then Captain Dan Gallery and brought over here to the museum of science and industry dick we want to thank you so much and we want to thank the museum of science and industry and Fred Ashley the publicity man who set this all up for us for allowing us to come out to the U505 and telling the story of this captured German submarine it's been very interesting indeed for us and we certainly hope that the listeners have enjoyed hearing you and I'm sure that you by now have a love attached to this old submarine hearing you tell about it well thank you very much

you and I enjoyed doing the show with you and that's the story of the German U505 and this is Hugh Hill speaking