This Adventure Called Retirement

We woke up early Sunday morning to get to an early Mass and continue our drive East. We went to Mass at Saint Patrick’s Parish in Mauston WI which was on our route. A beautiful church build in the 1850s.

Following Mass we resumed our drive from Wisconsin to Chicago through the rolling hills and farmland. It is always amazing to see the contrast of landscape and traffic when crossing the Mississippi and it seems no different in what state you cross. West of the Mississippi is typically flat or low,rolling hills with few towns. low density of population and traffic, and expansive open ranges and farms. East of the Mississippi the land immediately fills with more hills and many more trees, more towns and large cities with higher population density and heavier traffic. It is quite a contrast. This was particularly noticeable approaching Chicago.

We were headed to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago for a specific reason – it is the site of the captured WWII German submarine U-505. German submarines sank 2700 merchant ships in the Atlantic, hundreds of them right off the East Coast of the United States during WWII. The US Navy was not prepared for the U-Boat attacks so close to our shore and had no ships, few men, and no plan to counter these attacks that began right after Pearl Harbor. It took over a year for the US Navy to develop a counter to the U boat threat, but when they did, one officer, CAPT Dan Gallery, devised a daring plan to capture a U boat before the crew could scuttle it following an attack that required them to abandon ship. This required sending a boarding party to the sinking sub after the crew abandoned it, boarding the sub and securing any sea openings to stop the flooding, and find and dismantle any scuttling explosives or booby traps that may have been left behind. CAPT Gallery was the Task Force Commander and on June 4th, 1944 (two days before D-Day in Normandy) the task force succeeded in forcing the U-505 to surface and be abandoned, then succeeded in capturing it and keeping it afloat. The whole operation was kept classified TOP SECRET in the belief that, if the Germans knew the US had captured the ship with its code books and cypher machine then they would have changed their codes.

After the war ended, the US Navy planned to use the U-505 for target practice and sink her, but CAPT Gallery intervened and, with the assistance of the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, convinced the Navy to preserve it at the museum. Thus this museum in Chicago holds the actual captured U-505. restored to its original configuration and now classified as a National Historic Landmark.

The U-505 exhibit is open to any visitor, but to tour the interior requires an additional ticket with timed entry. It is recommended that you get tickets on line to ensure you have a spot because the number of visitors on the tour is limited due to space limits (after all, it is a submarine). The tour is definitely worth the ticket – with exceptions for allowing access the interior has been restored to it’s WWII appearance using German design prints and documents for accuracy. As a submarine veteran I found it fascinating.

We saw several other exhibits in the museum, but nothing as exceptional as an actual German submarine from WWII that actually fought in the war and was captured and towed 2500 miles across the Atlantic in secrecy.

After a quick visit to the shore of Lake Michigan we continued to Merrillville south of Chicago for dinner and a good night sleep. We were hoping for Chicago style pizza but we didn’t want to drive back into Chicago so we settled for a local Italian restaurant, The pizza was delicious.