“The U-505 as a Vehicle” by S.M. O’Connor

The U-505, like many submarines, had double hulls. The outer hull enclosed the pressure hull, ballast tanks, and fuel tanks; made the vessel more hydrodynamic than the cylindrical pressure hull allowed; provided support to for the wooden weather deck; and offered storage space for the anchor windlass, superfluous torpedoes, and lifeboats.[1] Crewman Hans Jacob Göbeler explained, “Attached to the outside of the pressure hull were various…tanks. Some of these were diving tanks, which were flooded with seawater or pumped-out with air in order to submerge or surface, respectively. Smaller trim tanks were used to more precisely control our depth. Other tanks held our supply of diesel fuel. Enclosing the entire vessel was the exterior hull, constructed of much thinner steel plate.”[2] These are the dimensions of her outer hull. The U-505 is 252 feet long.[3] [Technically, she is 76.76 meters (251.83 feet) long.[4]] Her beam – the widest part of the U-boat at her water line – is 6.76 meters (22.18 feet).[5] The U-505’s draft (the depth of water she drew) was 4.67 meters (15.32 feet).[6]

These are the dimensions of her pressure hull. The length of the U-505’s pressure hull is 57.75 meters (189.47 feet).[7] The diameter of her pressure hull is 4.4 meters (14.44 feet).[8] The thickness of her pressure hull plates is 18.55 millimeters (.73 inches).[9] Göbeler explained, “The walls of the pressure hull were constructed of a thick steel alloy specially designed to withstand the immense water pressure exerted against it when submerged.”[10] Note that Göbeler stated the U-505 was 15.25 feet wide amidships, and while he did not specify if he meant the pressure hull or outer hull, he must have meant the pressure hull.[11] He also stated, “The height between her keel and the tip of her periscope was 44.5 feet, giving her a periscope depth of 14 meters, in the European method of calculation.[12]

The topside of the outer hull was flat.[13] It was called the Upper Deck, and it was covered with wooden planks.[14] Beneath these wooden planks, there was additional torpedo storage in the form of ten pressure storage tubes that contained ten torpedoes.[15] On the Upper Deck, relatively far forward, there was a retractable capstan, which is a windlass submariners would have used to wind ropes or naval cables.[16] Farther back, there were retractable bollards, which are posts used for mooring a ship or boat.[17]

Amidships, above the Control Room, was the superstructure of the U-boat.[18] Throughout her existence, the U-505’s superstructure had been dominated by her Conning Tower.[19] An open bridge topped the Conning Tower.[20] Two periscope masts projected from the Conning Tower until the U.S. Navy removed one of them.[21] Initially, the superstructure included a 10.5 centimeter (105 millimeter) Schiffskanone C/32 forward deck gun, meaning it was situated in front of the Conning Tower.[22] A three-man crew was necessary to operate this gun, which could traverse 360 degrees and could fire a twenty-three-kilo projectile a distance of up to 15,300 meters, while other men supplied ammunition from the magazine inside the pressure hull.[23] The superstructure also included a 3.7 centimeter aft flak (anti-aircraft) gun (behind the Conning Tower).[24] It fired a shell that weighed .073 kilos a distance of up to 15,350 meters.[25] There was a 2 centimeter Flak 38 gun mounted behind the Conning Tower.[26]

Like all submarines built before engineer Helmuth Walther (1900-1980),[27] an innovator in the fields of both rocket and submarine propulsion, invented air-independent propulsion (A.I.P.), the U-505 was designed to primarily run at the surface and dive occasionally,[28] though when the Allies began to win the war, U-boats ran submerged during the day and surfaced at night. Today, Walther’s A.I.P. submarines – the Type XXI U-boat – that emerged toward the end of the war and nuclear submarines are considered true submarines and older model subs are considered submersibles because they were designed to mostly operate at the surface and only dive occasionally.[29]

The U-505 had two 2,500-horsepower, nine-cylinder, super-charged, four-stroke (also known as four-cycle), seawater-cooled diesel-electric engines manufactured by Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg (M.A.N.), AG.[30] Each engine was coupled with clutches to a dynamotor and the shaft and had its own instruments and controls to give a machinist’s mate enough information to keep it going.[31] Each cylinder’s temperature would be displayed “on a bank of vertical instruments” that was next to the engine order telegraph, as James E. Wise, Jr. explained in U-505: The Final Journey.[32] There were repeaters for the engine order telegraph throughout the U-505, “by means of which speed directions were signaled.” [33] Two Siemens-Schuckert-Weake (S.S.W.) electric motors propelled the U-505 while she was underwater.[34] The electric motors were fed by 164 (2 x 62) battery cells that generated 740 W at 11,300 Ah (based on discharge over twenty hours), producing up to 562 horse-power.[35] [Williamson was writing about Type IX-C U-boats in general rather than the U-505 in particular when he wrote they had two 2,200 brake horsepower M.A.N. diesel engines and two S.S.W. 500 brake horsepower electric motors.[36]] The battery weighed 79.4 tons.[37] Submerged, the U-505 had a range of sixty-three nautical miles and a top speed of seven knots.[38] The U-505 had to re-surface for several hours in any twenty-four-hour-long period and run her diesel engines to recharge her electric storage battery.[39]

Göbeler recalled, “The long banks of 110-volt D.C. batteries, located beneath the deck plates, needed to be recharged after about ten hours of operation. It took about seven hours of running the diesels to fully recharge the batteries. Cruising on the surface for seven hours was usually no problem early in the war. But later on, after Allied carrier task forces made their appearance, planes often prevented us from recharging our batteries. This made us unable to escape underwater and literally [sic] turned us into sitting ducks for the enemy. The electric motor room located just aft of the diesel engine room. The electric motor control board, rudder controls, and air compressors were also located here.”[40]

At the surface, the U-505 was a diesel-electric vehicle, but underwater she was an electric vehicle because the diesel engines had to be switched off or they would have consumed the air in the pressure hull the men needed to breathe.[41] Unlike some other U-boats, the U-505 was neither built with nor retrofitted with a schnorkel,[42] which would have allowed her to run her diesel engines when submerged at periscope depth.[43] As you might guess, this was simply a giant snorkel like an underwater swimmer might use. It was a pipe that stuck up as far as a periscope and pulled air down into the pressure hull to allow the engines to operate while submerged near the surface.[44]

The external fuel tanks carried seawater underneath the oil, which, being lighter than water, floated atop the water.[45] As the U-505’s diesel engines used up the oil, her fuel tanks would take in more seawater.[46] Inside the pressure hull, she could accommodate 64.34 metric tons of fuel, with her ballast tanks she could accommodate 152.42 metric tons of fuel, and with both the ballast tanks and the trim tanks she could accommodate 207.51 metric tons of fuel.[47] [Note that Decker understandably rounded this up to 208 tons of diesel fuel.[48]] Surfaced, the U-505 had a maximum range of 13,450 nautical miles at ten knots and 5,000 nautical miles at 18.3 knots.[49] Note that in The U-Boat Century, Jak Mallmann Showell stated IX-C and IX-C/40 U-boats had a range of 16,300 nautical miles at ten knots.[50] According to Decker, the U-505 could travel 8,100 miles without refueling.[51] Submerged, the U-505 had a maximum range of sixty-three nautical miles at four knots and 128 nautical miles at two knots.[52] Surfaced, her maximum speed was 19.25 knots.[53] Submerged, her top speed was 7.46 knots.[54]

While traveling at the surface, a U-boat had open sea valves at the bottom and closed air vents at the top of ballast tanks, with the result that seawater entered ballast tanks, compressing air at the top of the ballast tanks until the air pressure equaled the water pressure and water ceased to come in.[55] Thus, the ballast tanks were half-full of water when a U-boat traveled at the surface and the air trapped at the top of the ballast tanks helped give the U-boat positive buoyancy.[56] To dive, the crew would open the air vents, allowing the air to escape and seawater to replace it in the ballast tanks, causing the tanks to lose buoyancy.[57] It was easier to dive fast if the front end of the U-boat became heavier than the back end by opening the forward air vents atop the ballast tanks first and then the aft vents rather than opening them simultaneously.[58] This would lower the bow ten degrees in the process.[59] The planesmen in the Control Room, meanwhile, watched the inclinometers and used their wheels to move the forward and aft dive planes (paddles) to get the U-boat to reach the desired angle.[60] The U-boat commandant would adjust trim and buoyancy by admitting a relatively small amount of water into the pressure hull’s internal tanks.[61]

To resurface, submariners would close the air vents atop the ballast tanks and blow compressed air into the top of the ballast tanks to force out water through the open sea valves at the bottom of the ballast tanks, making the sub buoyant again.[62] In addition to being able to use compressed air to blow out ballast water, the crew could also mechanically pump out the water.[63] Further, the planesmen could use the dive planes to raise the sub, producing dynamic lift, much as wings lift an airplane.[64]

The U-505 could safely dive to 100 meters (328 feet).[65] She had a tested diving depth of 165 meters (541 feet),[66] which Admiral Gallery rendered as 600 feet.[67] The theoretical maximum depth to which she could dive was 250 meters (820 feet).[68] Göbeler noted, “Our maximum depth published in the manuals was 100 meters (about 330 feet), but in an emergency we could dive to twice that depth – or more.”[69] Admiral Gallery estimated the crush depth of the U-505 was around 1,000 beneath the surface, which meant if she reached that or greater depth, she would be crushed.[70]

She displaced 1,120 tons of water surfaced and 1,232 tons of water submerged.[71]

DISPLACEMENT (WEIGHT)[72]

Hull without ballast	404.78 metric tons
Engines	291.31 metric tons
Water, lubricating oil, etc.	10.15 metric tons
Weaponry	168.3 metric tons
Miscellaneous	2 metric tons
Weight without ballast	876.54 metric tons
Effective ballast	78.33 metric tons
Weight (normal load)	958.33 metric tons
Weight (maximum load)	1,081.45 metric tons[73]

Note that Jak Mallmann Showell rendered the displacement as 1,120 to 1,540 tons in The U-Boat Century.[74]

The U-505 has six twenty-one-inch-diameter torpedo tubes.[75] She has four torpedo tubes in her Forward Torpedo Room and two in her Aft Torpedo Room.[76] Thus, a Type IX U-boat could fire torpedoes at ships behind her, as well as ahead of her. [The smaller Type II and Type VII U-boats did not have aft torpedo rooms.] In addition to the four torpedoes loaded in the four torpedo tubes of the Forward Torpedo Room to begin with, there were four additional torpedoes stored in the Forward Torpedo Room.[77] Decker and Göbeler both mentioned that German submariners called torpedoes “eels.”[78] There was storage space for torpedoes under the deck plates of the Forward Torpedo Room.[79] Toward the back of the Forward Torpedo Room there was a hatch at the top of the pressure hull that led up to the Upper Deck.[80] Through this hatch, the men could lower torpedoes that had been held in storage in pressurized tubes beneath the wooden planks over the Upper Deck. [81]

Normally, a Type IX-C U-boat could carry a maximum of twenty-two torpedoes.[82] However, individual U-boats would not necessarily carry that many torpedoes at the start of every war cruise. Type IX U-boats had two torpedo rooms, one at each end. The Forward Torpedo Room had four 53.3cm (twenty-one-inch-diameter) torpedo tubes while the Aft Torpedo Room had two 53.3cm torpedo tubes.[83] Theoretically, the U-505 could hold twenty-four torpedoes: ten in the Forward Torpedo Room (four in the tubes, four under the deck, and two on the deck); four in Aft Torpedo Room (two in the tubes and two on the deck); and ten in storage (in individual pressure canisters below the main deck in front of the Conning Tower).[84] However, on the U-505, they typically carry twenty-two torpedoes, not bothering to carry two on the deck in the Forward Torpedo Room. [In Twenty Million Tons Under the Sea, Admiral Dan Gallery stated the U-505 carried twenty-one torpedoes.[85]] The U-505 carried twenty-three torpedoes on her first patrol, and sixteen torpedoes on her last patrol.

There were two toilets, one in each torpedo room, but the Aft Torpedo washroom (or head as it would be called in the U.S. Navy) would be stuffed with food at the beginning of a war cruise, so effectively it was unavailable until the men ate their way through the food stored in there. There was also a trick to flushing the toilet while a U-boat was submerged. If it was done the wrong way, ocean water would come rushing in through the toilet. [Being a British author, Gordon Williamson refers to the washrooms in Kriegsmarine U-boats 1939-45, Volume 2 as “W.C. compartments,” W.C. standing for water closet.] While the U-505 ran submerged, the men could not use the toilets and used a bucket in the Diesel Engine Room as a chamber pot.[86]

The non-rated enlisted men slept in the torpedo rooms.[87] These torpedo rooms have oak veneer lockers. There were six bunks on each side of the Forward Torpedo Room, for a total of twelve.[88] Men had to share their bunks and slept in shifts in which case when one man woke up to go to work another man would get into the bunk.[89] This is known as “hot bunking.”[90] Twenty-four men slept in those twelve bunks in two shifts.[91] If they had to load a torpedo, the men could fold up the bunks in the torpedo rooms.[92] At the start of a war cruise, when space was at a premium because the U-boat was fully loaded with torpedoes (and food was crammed into every available space), up to three might have to share a bunk.[93] Many of the enlisted men slept in hammocks in the torpedo rooms.[94] These hammocks could only be hung from the ceiling when space freed up and would have to be taken back down when torpedoes were being loaded. The men had folding tables they could set up.[95]

Figure 1 Credit: J.B. Spector, Museum of Science and Industry Caption: This is how the Forward Torpedo Room looks now. Mr. Spector took this picture in the new U-505’s new underground exhibit, The New U-505 Experience, on February 9, 2012.

The chief petty officers and petty officers slept in a room that was aft (behind) the Forward Torpedo Room and forward (in front of) the Galley (kitchen).[96] A waterproof hatch in this first bulkhead separated the Forward Torpedo Room from the Petty Officers’ Quarters.[97] There were three sets of bunks on the starboard side of the Petty Officer’s Quarters.[98] The chief petty officers and petty officers did not have to share their bunks.[99] The U-505’s electric storage batteries were stored beneath the deck plates of the Petty Officer’s Quarters.[100] The junior non-coms slept in the bunks that were closer to the Forward Torpedo Room.[101]

The Galley, which was a little larger than a phone booth, had a three-burner stove, two small electric ovens, a small refrigerator, and food locker.[102] Food has to be stored throughout the U-boat because there simply was so little storage space in the Galley.[103] Decker described the cramped conditions aboard the U-505 on her first patrol. “There were supplies everywhere: our torpedo tubes loaded with Aale (in other navies they called them fish; we call them eels); the other Aale, sixteen of them, lashed in the reload mounts of the forward and after rooms; our sea bags stacked high between the torpedo tubes; boxes, crates, cartons, cans, and what-all piled high in the passageway, behind the diesels, even in the bilges; sacks of potatoes stashed under the chart table in the control room and loaves of bread in hammocks strung up high in both torpedo rooms. We began to wonder if we were a warehouse or a weapon of war.”[104] Göbeler later recalled, “Only as a war patrol progressed and we consumed the food, did we have the slightest bit of free space on board. However, no matter how much fresh food we tried to cram aboard before a departure (usually about four tons), we always suffered from symptoms of an unhealthy diet by the time we returned.”[105] Men had to eat sitting in their bunks or standing up. The U-505’s ammunition magazine was under the deck plates of the Galley.[106]

The officers slept in a stateroom (that was forward of the commanding officer’s) with four bunks, two upper bunks and two lower bunks.[107] This was the Officers’ Wardroom, and it was located forward of the Commandant’s Quarters and aft of the Galley.[108] In the Officers’ Wardroom, the bulkheads had oak veneer paneling.[109] It was possible, especially in wartime, for gifted petty officers and chief petty officers to receive recognition that led to them going to officer’s school and becoming commissioned officers, but historically there was a class divide between officers and petty officers. The commissioned officers often came from the aristocracy; the gentry; and the homes of rich, upper-middle-class, and middle-class burghers; while the petty officers often came from lower-middle-class burghers who had technical skills. The officers could set up a table in the Officers’ Wardroom, but they had to be prepared to move everything. Göbeler later recalled that the lower bunks in the Officers’ Wardroom could fold up to accommodate a table so the Officers’ Wardroom could be converted into a conference room.[110] He also pointed out the washbasin in the Officers’ Wardroom was largely symbolic because the U-505’s distillation plant could only produce sixty-four gallons of fresh water a day and it had to be carefully rationed for cooking, drinking, and the batteries.[111]

The Commandant’s Quarters was aft of the Officer’s Wardroom, but was confined to the portside (the left side when one is facing forward). The Sound Room and the Radio Room were across from the Commandant’s Quarters, on the starboard side (the right side when one is facing forward). The Radio Room was directly opposite the Commandant’s Quarters.[112] All three of these rooms, the Commandant’s Quarters, the Sound Room, and the Radio Room, were aft of the Officer’s Quarters and forward of the Control Room. U-boats communicated with BdU via short-wave radio in the range of 3-30 megahertz.[113] Typically, a U-boat would have a Telefunken receiver and two transmitters.[114] The primary transmitter was manufactured by Telefunken and was a 200-watt model, while the backup transmitter was manufactured Lorenz and was a 40-watt model.[115] While at sea, U-boats would communicate with each other using medium-wave radios in the range of 1.5-3 megahertz.[116] This also would likely be Telefunken equipment.[117] There were additional electric storage batteries under the deck plates in this area.[118]

Aboard a U-boat, the Commanding Officer was the only one with any real privacy, and that came only in the way of drawing a curtain across the entrance to his quarters.[119] [His men only had privacy when they were on the toilet.[120]] In a six-square-foot space were crammed the Commanding Officer’s bunk, locker, desk, and wash bowl.[121] Like the Officers’ Wardroom, the Commandant’s Quarters had oak veneer paneling.[122] The Commanding Officer had a combination washstand and desk because when the washbasin was not in use, the Commanding Officer could fold a lid over the washbasin to turn it into a writing desk.[123]

Located amidships, aft of these three rooms, was the Zentral (Control Room), where the helm, planesmen’s wheels, navigator’s table, primary ballast pump controls, and other controls were located.[124] Florescent paint on the air ducts allowed the crew to see when the lights went out during attacks by Allied warships and warplanes.[125] The helmsman who steered the U-boat left or right and the two planesmen who steered the U-boat up and down worked in the Control Room.[126] The navigation table was near the center of the room. At any given time, one or more of these three men, the Commandant, the First Watch Officer, and the Second Watch Officer would be at work in the Control Room giving commands about taking the U-boat in a particular direction, diving, surfacing, attacking Allied merchant ships, fleeing from Allied warships, etc. The Conning Tower was directly above the Control Room and was accessed by climbing up a ladder.[127]

The Conning Tower had two periscopes, the attack periscope and the navigation periscope.[128] From the Conning Tower, the Commandant, the First Watch Officer, and the Second Watch Officer would use the two periscopes when the U-505 was running at periscope depth. Usually, they would give commands to fire torpedoes from the Conning Tower. Often officers and petty officers climbed through the Conning Tower to reach the Bridge and the Upper Deck.

Göbeler, who worked in the Control Room, later recalled, “This was the operational heart of a U-boat. Hundreds of levers, valves, cranks, gauges, and wheels covered virtually every inch of the compartment. My first duty station as a control room mate was at the forward end of this room, controlling the hydraulic lift for the periscope. During an attack, the skipper operated the periscope from the conning tower above us. After a while, I was moved to the forward port corner of the control room. There, I took on much more responsibility: handling the approximately three dozen hand wheels that controlled the opening and closing of various diving and trim tank valves.”[129]

The Engine Room was aft of the Control Room.[130] A watertight hatch separated the Control Room from the Engine Room.[131] Two large generator engines in the Engine Room recharged the batteries, aft of which were the M.A.N. diesel engines, which were extremely loud and generated a great deal of heat.[132] The space between the engines through which the men would walk was quite narrow.[133] They have been repaired several times and the Museum of Science and Industry has recorded the noise one of them generated to play back as a sound effect during tours of the U-505. That recording can also be heard in the Franco-American film U-571 (2001), a work of fiction inspired by the British Royal Navy’s capture of the U-110 and the U.S. Navy’s capture of the U-505.

The Electric Motor Room was aft of the Engine Room.[134] The Aft Torpedo Room was aft of the Electric Motor Room. [For perspective, before I worked in the Archives, when I started out as a Program Interpreter at the Museum of Science and Industry, while the U-505 was still outside, tour groups entered the U-505 at the Electric Motor Room through holes cut in the hulls on the portside and walked forward to the Petty Officers’ Quarters, where they exited through holes in the hulls on the portside. The flow of foot traffic through the U-505 reversed in the new exhibit after she moved underground. Tour groups now enter the U-505 at the Petty Officers’ Quarters and walk back to exit at the Electric Motor Room. Doorway-shaped holes were cut in the bulkheads to make it easier for tour groups to get through the U-boat (except at the torpedo rooms) so people would not have to scramble through the waterproof hatches.] The large air compressor was located on the starboard side of the Electric Motor Room.[135]

A watertight hatch separated the Aft Torpedo Room from the Electric Motor Room. In addition to the aforementioned two torpedo tubes, the Aft Torpedo Room had eight bunks for sixteen men, a washroom, and an auxiliary steering wheel that could fold down for use in case the main steering controls of the helmsmen were knocked out of commission.[136]

Figure 2 Credit: J.B. Spector, Museum of Science and Industry Caption: This is how the Forward Torpedo Room looks now. Mr. Spector took this picture in the new U-505’s new underground exhibit. Note, for security purposes, there are usually grates inside the torpedo room hatches.

There were no bathing facilities as such on the U-boats of the Kriegsmarine.[137] This is to say there were neither bathtubs nor shower stalls. Technically, it was possible to take salt water showers, but this would be with the diesel engine cooling water after it had been used to cool the engines, so it would be extremely hot.[138] Submarines distilled seawater and it had to be carefully rationed.[139] German submariners received half a bucket of fresh water per day, and had to learn to brush their teeth, shave, scrub their clothes, and wash themselves with it.[140]

Admiral Gallery later commented, “A thief on a submarine is simply unthinkable, and so is a sex pervert – because there is no place to hide. I’ve heard of a man on a U.S. sub during the war who didn’t think it was safe to leave his money behind on the paymaster’s books in Pearl Harbor when he went off on a war patrol to Japan. He drew $1,200 in cash the last day in port and kept it in his clothes locker on the sub! Everybody lives in a goldfish bowl and any unusual event in the after torpedo room, such as Schmidt losing his watch, is known immediately in the forward torpedo room.”[141]

While U-boats ran near the surface, U-boat commanders would often send up antennas to receive radio signals.[142] [A U-boat would have to completely resurface to send a radio transmission, though.[143]] To entertain the crew, the radio operators could play music broadcasts over the loudspeaker system.[144] Further, gramophones, also known as record players, could be hooked into the loudspeaker system in the Radio Room so the crew could listen to popular music.[145] News broadcasts from the Fatherland made the crew feel less isolated.[146] The men would ceaselessly read and re-read the same books and magazines.[147] Popular pastimes included card games, chess, and checkers.[148]

Seemänner (Seamen) worked in four-hour-long watches during which they would serve as lookouts on the bridge if the U-boat was running at the surface or perform maintenance work on torpedoes or man the steering controls if the U-boat was submerged and prepare meals.[149] Engineering personnel, by contrast, worked in six-hour-long watches during which they operated and maintained the two diesel engines, the two electric motors, etc.[150] Funker (Radiomen) worked in four-to-eight-hour-long watches in the Radio Room and Sound Room during which they sent and received signals, listened to the hydrophones while submerged, and operated radar search receivers (as well as radar late in the war) while surfaced.[151] The torpedo mechanics, who slept in the torpedo rooms with the unrated enlisted men, oversaw the maintenance and operation of torpedoes.[152]

Credit: The Bobby Brix Channel Caption: This animated video shows instructions for how to build a micro-scale model of the U-505 with LEGO® bricks.

ENDNOTES

[1] Daniel V. Gallery, Twenty Million Tons Under the Sea: The Daring Capture of the U-505. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press (1956, 2001), pages 43 and 44

[2] Hans Göbeler and John Vanzo, Steel Boat, Iron Hearts: A U-Boat Crewman’s Life aboard U-505. New York City, New York: Savas Beatie (2005), p. 13

[3] Gallery, p. 40

See also Wise, p. 2

[9] Rust, “Appendix A: Type IXC U-Boats: Technical Data,” p. 222

[10] Göbeler, pages 12 and 13

[11] Göbeler, p. 10

[12] Göbeler, p. 10

[13] Göbeler, p. 13

[14] Göbeler, p. 13

[15] Göbeler, p. 13

[16] Williamson, pages 28 and 29

[17] Williamson, pages 28 and 29

[18] Göbeler, p. 13

[19] Göbeler, p. 13

[20] Göbeler, p. 13

[21] Göbeler, p. 13

The U.S. Navy installed this periscope in the Arctic Submarine Laboratory in Point Loma, California. In 2003, after this facility closed, the U.S Navy transferred this periscope to the Museum of Science and Industry to be reunited with the U-505. It is now displayed beside the U-505.

[22] Decker, p. 34

See also Göbeler, p. 12

Göbeler stated they were 2,200 horsepower diesel engines.

Rust, “Appendix A: Type IXC U-Boats: Technical Data,” p. 222

See also Wise, p. 2

Note that Wise stated they were 2,170 horsepower diesel engines.

Literally, Maschinenfabrik means machine-factory. Augsburg and Nürnberg (called Nuremberg in English) are important German cities in Bavaria. Both cities benefitted from their place on the trade route from the Italian provinces of the Holy Roman Empire to the German provinces of the Holy Roman Empire and kingdoms outside the Empire. They were both Free Imperial Cities, meaning there were no intermediary lords between them and the Holy Roman Emperor and the Imperial Diet. Further, Nuremburg was the de facto capital of the German Realm of the Holy Roman Empire from 1423 to 1796, which gave the city symbolic importance. This is why Hitler held Nazi Party Rallies there several times between 1923 and 1938. The importance of the city to the N.S.D.A.P. is why the victories Allies held the Nuremburg Trials there in 1945 and ’46. The city was famous for handmade toys and clocks in early modern times and became a major industrial center in the 19^th Century.

[31] Wise, p. 2

[32] Wise, p. 2

[33] Wise, p. 2

[34] Rust, “Appendix A: Type IXC U-Boats: Technical Data,” p. 222

See also Wise, p. 2

See also Göbeler, p. 12

[35] Rust, “Appendix A: Type IXC U-Boats: Technical Data,” p. 222

See also Wise, p. 2

[36] Williamson, p. 7

[37] Rust, “Appendix A: Type IXC U-Boats: Technical Data,” p. 222

[38] Göbeler, p. 12

[39] Gallery, pages 40 and 57