The Capture of U-505: The US Navy's controversial Enigma raid, Atlantic Ocean 1944
Nov 2022 · Raid Book 58 · Bloomsbury Publishing
Ebook
80
Pages
About this ebook
U-505 was the first enemy warship the US Navy captured at sea since 1812. This is a new account of how Captain Gallery planned and executed the raid on his own initiative, and how his success almost endangered the war against the U-boats.
On June 4, 1944 a US Navy antisubmarine task group in the Atlantic captured an enemy U-boat on the high seas. It was not the first time the Allies had taken a German U-boat as a prize, but the capture of U-505 was different. Captain Gallery and his Task Group 22.3 devised a risky plan to capture scuttled U-boats.
This book analyses in detail Gallery's dangerous strategy, using contemporary sources to explore why he thought the reward was worth the risk: instead of attempting to sink the next U-boat that surfaced among them, a destroyer escort would send off its whaleboat. Everyone else was to smother the U-boat with light gunfire to encourage its crew to abandon quickly. Unaware that the Allies had already cracked the German's codes and the capture of a U-boat could endanger that secret, Gallery hoped to capture the vessel's codes and coding equipment to read U-boat message traffic. The plan culminated in the capture of U-505 in early June, which nearly caused the exposure of the Bletchley Park codebreaking secret.
Featuring contemporary photographs, specially commissioned artwork and 3D maps, this book is a fascinating exploration of one of the most controversial and dangerous raids, which could have changed the outcome of World War II as we know it.
On June 4, 1944 a US Navy antisubmarine task group in the Atlantic captured an enemy U-boat on the high seas. It was not the first time the Allies had taken a German U-boat as a prize, but the capture of U-505 was different. Captain Gallery and his Task Group 22.3 devised a risky plan to capture scuttled U-boats.
This book analyses in detail Gallery's dangerous strategy, using contemporary sources to explore why he thought the reward was worth the risk: instead of attempting to sink the next U-boat that surfaced among them, a destroyer escort would send off its whaleboat. Everyone else was to smother the U-boat with light gunfire to encourage its crew to abandon quickly. Unaware that the Allies had already cracked the German's codes and the capture of a U-boat could endanger that secret, Gallery hoped to capture the vessel's codes and coding equipment to read U-boat message traffic. The plan culminated in the capture of U-505 in early June, which nearly caused the exposure of the Bletchley Park codebreaking secret.
Featuring contemporary photographs, specially commissioned artwork and 3D maps, this book is a fascinating exploration of one of the most controversial and dangerous raids, which could have changed the outcome of World War II as we know it.
About the author
Mark Lardas holds a degree in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, but spent his early career at the Johnson Space Center doing Space Shuttle structural analysis, and space navigation. An amateur historian and a long-time ship modeler, Mark currently lives and works in League City, Texas. He has written extensively about modeling as well as naval, maritime, and military history.
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