NBD, just a huge space containing an entire World War II German U-boat, at MSI (Museum of Science and Industry) in Chicago.
The capture of a World War Two German submarine, U-505, that was so clandestine, it was towed 2,500 nautical miles to a place where its secrets could be safely and quietly removed.
The story of a WWII German coding machine – Enigma – that was not fully declassified until the 1970s. The public really first learned about it when the book The Ultra Secret came out in 1974; I remember my Dad reading a copy.
The Americans wanted no one to know that they had taken U-505 in June 1944, so its captured crew was held in a Ruston, Louisiana POW camp for the rest of the war. All the letters they sent home were intercepted, which went against the Third Geneva Convention. The German Navy declared them missing and presumed dead.
It must have been quite a shock to their families when they arrived back home in Germany after postwar release.
Head-on view of the U-505 German submarine.
This was not the only German Enigma machine captured by Allied forces – the first was taken by the British from U-110 in May, 1941 – but getting a more recent version, plus current code books, was incredibly valuable in 1944.
On a family trip to Chicago, we decided to spend part of a day at this submarine’s current home, the MSI (Museum of Science and Industry) which is an easy bus ride south from the downtown Loop. (Don’t confuse it with the “museum campus” that includes the Field Museum, Shedd Aquarium, and Adler Planetarium back to the north.)
As a big fan of the riveting Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, I was excited to learn that MSI is housed in the only remaining building from the 1893 Columbian Exposition world’s fair, held in Chicago and featured in Larson’s book.
The entire museum is spectacular and we could hardly see everything on its multiple floors. Wear comfortable shoes for walking and plan on taking your time.
Related post – The Sleekest, Sexiest Train Ever: Pioneer Zephyr at MSI Chicago
The U-505 submarine is only one of many MSI exhibits, and it is housed in its own enormous space thanks to an Admiral who was a Chicago native and helped bring the sub to the city after the war.
What a torpedo would look like leaving one of the U-505 forward torpedo tubes.
It was an outside exhibit until it was preserved and carefully moved to a new, big indoor exhibit area, the one that I visited.
“How do you move a National Historic Landmark that weighs as much as three Statues of Liberty and is nearly a city block long? Then, once it is moved, how do you lower it four stories into a new exhibit space? … Over several days in April 2004, the team guided the U-5051,000 feet to its new home—a 75-by-300-foot, 42-foot deep pen. The boat was jacked up and placed on Teflon pads to help minimize friction as it was pushed across the span of the pen on four enormous steel bridge beams. Mighty jacks rose up to greet the sub as it made a two-day, four-story descent to the floor below and was positioned in its new exhibit gallery.”
There are ramps and walkways above and below the boat, so that you can experience it from every angle.
Signs and displays are laid out in a circular pattern to tell you the whole story of its capture and explain what was found onboard, as you walk around the exterior and are positioned slightly below the submarine on ground level. A lighted moving water pattern in blue projected onto the hull gives the sense of the sub’s former ocean home.
Here is the U.S. Navy’s detailed story of the sub’s capture, but the museum’s displays tell the extraordinary tale in a clear, understandable way with text, photos, and video.
Placard at MSI Chicago showing how U-505 was towed across the Atlantic from where she was captured off of the African continent.
Display cases and interactive exhibits explain the importance of getting ahold of an Enigma machine and code books, and how they worked.
Here is an M4 Enigma machine similar to the one taken from U-505 submarine…
German Enigma code machine similar to the one from captured U-505.
The early Enigmas had three rotors, the later ones four. One rotor was stationary, and three could be swapped out with others that came with the box, for a total of eight available, resulting in 207 billion possible rotor arrangements for coding.
Below are the rotors that were the heart of the machine. You are looking at something that was even more classified than Top Secret in 1944…
Rotors for a German Enigma coding machine.
An interactive display shows you how the coding worked to scramble outgoing messages…
Be a coder!
I paid an extra US$18 fee to go on a timed guided 25-minute tour onboard the sub, and it was well worth it.
Book in advance; tours leave every 30 minutes.
The guide was excellent and the story fast-paced, with some sound and lighting effects.
Packed into the sub’s control room with our on-board guide. The blue-lighted access area under her arm contains the valve the Germans used to try to sink the sub before capture.
There are constant reminders of the tight quarters (the tour cannot accommodate wheelchairs or strollers) and how the submariners shared their living quarters with every valve, pipe, pump, and piece of electrical equipment imaginable, including the sub’s own torpedoes…
Sleeping with the torpedo tubes on a sub; luckily for the crew, slightly different than “sleeping with the fishes.”
In addition to seeing all of the spaces during the onboard tour, you can see displays and mockups on the main exhibit floor even if you don’t take the tour.
I found many of these quite fascinating, including how a U-boat crew was fed during a patrol.
Look at this tiny galley (kitchen) with three hot plates, a spot for the soup pot including a brace to keep it in place when the sub moved, and a small oven below…
One person could fit into this tiny kitchen space, prepping food for a crew of 59 men.
As the placard in the photo above says,
“A little over 12 tons of food was loaded aboard the U-boat before it left on a patrol that could last over 100 days. The cooks had to maintain an accurate count of every pound of food and kitchen supplies consumed – and their exact stowage locations throughout the boat – in order to help the diving officer keep the boat in balance.”
Another sign had a detailed list of a typical U-boat food loadout, including 595 pounds of fresh eggs, 238 pounds of sausages, 917 pounds of fresh lemons, and 108 pounds of chocolates.
When fresh food ran out, it was time to crack open the canned goods…
A can of bread, for when the fresh version ran out on patrol.
Allow plenty of time to see everything. You could spend an entire day at MSI Chicago and this U-505 submarine is only one part of it.
Do try to fit in the timed onboard tour; it adds a whole other dimension to the experience.
U-505 submarine German engine order indicator. “Tauchen” is Dive.
Adult tickets to MSI are US$21.95 – you may find that a Chicago CityPASS will save you a lot if you’re seeing multiple attractions in town. Or see prices for other Chicago museums and attractions here.
All photos by the author.
If you like this post, please consider subscribing to the blog via RSS feed or by email – the email signup box is toward the top of the right sidebar (or below on mobile). Thanks!
Related posts:
We love your shares!