ERICH TOPP recently sent this story to us. It is a good one.--HC

Summer of 1944 had been the last patrol of the crew of U-505 and its captain, Harald Lange. On the way to West Africa the boat was attacked by planes and destroyers. As a result of heavy depth charges, the boat was forced to surface.

They tried to defend themselves with machine guns. The Captain, badly hurt, gave the order to sink the boat but the prepared explosives did not function. The U.S. destroyer USS PILLSBURY (from the USS GUADALCANAL Task Group) sent a boat with 20 men and occupied the U-boat and brought it via Bermuda to Chicago. Since that time it is positioned there as a war trophy.

Thinking of the dramatic U-505 story, I try to find a way characterizing it as a paradigm of the condition of existence. I remember the Roman poet Horaz who has introduced the metaphor of the ‘Ship of State’ and Goethe’s metaphor of tracelesnes. Both say – Every path at sea will extinguish.

In metaphorical sense: progress and advancement, decline and fall leaves behind the same untouched surface – thought of uselessness.

As to U-505: whatever the crew and their captain have done or not done, it had no effect, no influence on the boat. It was taken by a tug to the United States where it is built up in a museum at Chicago, a war trophy.

I have been visiting the boat several times, and I have thought of my 17 war patrols. In my mind I returned to my submarine, attacking Allied convoys in the Atlantik. Sometimes the exhausted crew was close to rebellion – but we had to follow the order, fighting against the enemy in icy polar nights or in stormy and gale-lashed sea.

When I walked through the boat, everything came back – a surprise attack in the Irish Sea by a British airplane, my boat heavily damaged but nevertheless we continued our war patrol, operating on a thin line between life and death.

We saw an escorted convoy coming out of Liverpool. We fired three torpedoes – three ships were sinking. We were attacked by destroyers – hundreds of depth charges; all machinery out of duty, water pouring in, bad air, breathing through masks....after 24 hours, surfacing – escaping out of the ‘Lion’s Den’ – entering the estuary of the River Elbe in Germany – collision with a Norwegian steamer that lost control – my boat sinking within ten seconds – seven of my crew lost their life.

EDITOR NOTE – the Norwegian steamer was SS RONA

We had to report to the Admiralty (BdU) and we were feeling to a sudden reason, that we all had changed from a group of embittered people in a crew of men who had passed their own weakness; how futile and in vain everything was, that we were reporting to our superiors.

All this came back to my mind when I went through U-505. Only words and literature are able to explain the march of destiny of the U-boat men – their alert mind, their intelligence, their capability to suffer become visible at the dark horizon of instructive and disdaining actions. It is this ambiguity, the iridescence of the valor, talents and disposition that is characterizing life on board of a submarine and the dramatic story of U-505.

ERICH, this is an excellent story – Vielen dank! This also shows how important it is to keep this history honest and correct for all who follow can learn not only the history of the U-Bootwaffe and the men who rode the boats, but also what was in their minds, their hearts and souls while they were at sea, in combat.

That is why we deeply appreciate the help & assistance of the U-Bootfahrer to give us their memories so we may preserve them. It is a humbling task to do this and to do it correctly, but there is a tremendous amount of satisfaction knowing that we are making a valuable contribution to this history.

With the twenty years of working closely with the men of the U-Bootwaffe and their Archiv and with our deep appreciation to them, we are proud to be, along with the Archiv, the official source of history of the U-Bootwaffe.