U-505 under the US Navy Bermuda internment June 1944

U-505          US Navy      14-Jun-1944         6

U-505’s voyage to Bermuda was unique in that it was not a patrol at all, rather the submarine had been captured off West Africa and was towed by US Navy vessels to the island. Daniel Gallery led the overall carrier task force responsible for the capture of the boat intact.

Though U-505 does not fall under the category of enemy patrols around Bermuda, since it remained on the island until after the war and its contribution to US intelligence understanding of German U-boats, their machinery, manning, torpedoes, codes, and other technologies was inestimable, it is included here in passing only.

The previous commander Axel-Olaf Löwe’s successor Harald Lange was in command when she was captured by the Allies in the Central Atlantic and towed to Bermuda in mid-1944. U-505 was later to become famous for its capture whole by the Americans and for spending years in Bermuda as a highly prized secret during the war. It is now on display in the Museum of Science in Chicago.

 SOURCES: Gudmundur Helgason, Rainer Kolbicz, www.uboat.net, 2013, Kenneth Wynn, U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997, R. Busch, and H.-J. Röll, German U-boat Commanders of World War II, 1988, Franz Kurowski, Knights Cross Holders of the U-boat Service