Towing U-505 across the Atlantic

Recently I was reminded of an interesting trip I took to Massachusetts back in 1974. A friend of mine had asked me to accompany him on a drive home to Orleans, Massachusetts to deliver a car. As usual, I was free for the weekend and agreed to help him out. The trip was uneventful, but I wasn't prepared for what I saw upon our arrival. He pulled into a huge circle drive in front of a house (let's call it a mansion) that was about the size of the Weir Cook International Airport Terminal. Two gentlemen immediately came out to help us with our luggage (I had a duffle bag) and show us to our rooms. I had known this guy for four years and had no idea that his family was filthy rich. Kind of made us even because years later, he told me that he didn't know I was crazy.

Orleans was settled by Pilgrims from the Plymouth Bay Colony and I remember somebody telling me that somewhere around Orleans, Squanto was buried, or maybe I dreamed that. My old friend took me to several places, introducing me to friends and family around this unbelievably clean little rich town. Although we visited several businesses and residences, the only place that I still have vivid memories of is the Yacht Club. It wasn't what I would call a real fancy place, but at the Yacht Club I got a nice history lesson from my buddy's grandfather, the Commodore. They called him that because he was a past Commodore of the Yacht Club. It sounded like a prestigious position, but I had nothing to draw on since we never had a Yacht Club in Jasonville. They may have one now, I don't know, I've not been back in a while. As I sat with the Commodore on the veranda and sipped on some strange peppermint flavored iced tea, he regaled me with a story about a German U-boat (Unterseeboot) that attacked Orleans back during the First World War.

The German submarine, U-156, sailed across the Atlantic in the summer of 1918 with the mission of laying mines in New York Harbor and harassing fishing vessels off of the New England coast. After laying the mines along the south shore of Long Island, U-156 moved north to the waters around Cape Cod. Very early on a foggy July morning, U-156 began firing its' two deck guns at a tug boat and some barges just off of Nauset Beach. Several of the shells fell on Orleans and in the surrounding swamps and bogs. Immediately (or right after they changed their drawers), notification was sent to the nearby Naval Air Station and planes were dispatched to destroy the submarine. Unfortunately, aerial bombs used during that period of time were highly unreliable and the delivery systems were quite primitive; consequently, U-156 escaped to fight another day.

Although I did question the German strategy of picking tug boats and barges as targets, one of the mines that U-156 had prepositioned off the shore of Long Island sank the USS San Diego. This was the only Navy ship that was sunk due to enemy action during World War I. Ironically, U-156 was also sunk by a mine in the North Sea as it was attempting to return home to Germany. This mine was part of the North Sea Mine Barrage, which was a joint effort by the US and Great Britain to cut off the German submarine routes to the Atlantic. During this mine laying effort, some 55,000 mines were laid in the North Sea and possibly only 5-6 German submarines were sunk. It took a 10 month combined effort between the US Navy and Britain's Royal Navy to clean up these unexploded mines after the war. Also, it was estimated that 10 to 20 percent of these mines were never recovered.

I have never been underwater in a submarine and I have no plans for any such future endeavors. I have always had great admiration for those people who are or have been submariners and I have a couple of old friends who served on submarines, but I'm not sure they are 100 percent all right. My opinion has always been that you are at least one brick shy of a load to volunteer for duty on any boat that you submerge underwater on purpose. I remember watching a movie several years ago, 'Das Boot', which details the story of a German U-boat during World War II and that movie, coupled with my severe claustrophobic reactions to any small spaces, convinced me beyond a shadow of a doubt that I wasn't cut out to be a submariner.

In the mid-80s, I was working at the Naval Weapons Station Charleston and visited the museums at Patriots Point. Included in this very excellent collection of Navy ships is the USS Clamagore. This submarine was commissioned shortly after World War II and served in the fleet until 1975. If you have never been onboard one of these old subs, the tour through this old gal will definitely let you know how severely cramped these things can be. Be very careful and watch your head during the tour, I can attest to the fact that everything your head hits is extremely hard and painful.

I'd recommend Patriots Point to everyone who has any desire to learn about the history of the Navy. Along with the submarine tour, there is a Destroyer, a Coast Guard Cutter, and the USS Yorktown, an aircraft carrier. Onboard the Yorktown there is a museum for Congressional Medal of Honor recipients. I have been back to visit this place twice since my initial visit and will go again whenever I am in the area.

Another place that I would recommend is the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, which houses U-505, a German sub from World War II. This boat was captured by the US Navy off the coast of Africa in 1944 during a secret mission to capture German cryptographic documentation and hardware. They have now moved U-505 inside and the tour is unforgettable.

An interesting side note to this story is the secret detention of the German submariners from U-505 for the remainder of the war at a prison camp in Louisiana. They were guarded by US sailors who tried to teach them the game of baseball. A gentleman by the name of Gary Moore wrote a book about this subject because his Dad, Gene Moore, a baseball player in the Dodgers' organization before the war, was one of those guards. A movie based on the book, 'Playing With the Enemy' is now in production. Gene Moore will be portrayed in the movie by his grandson, Toby Moore, who also wrote the screenplay for the movie. Toby did an excellent job playing Tommy Skakel in the movie about the murder of Martha Moxley, 'Murder in Greenwich'. You might remember this because the Skakels were related to the Kennedys and it was in the news quite frequently a few years back. RFK's widow Ethel was a Skakel.

Years later I returned to Cape Cod for a couple of visits while working on a project concerning some unexploded ordnance at Camp Edwards. Coming down from Boston, I crossed the Bourne Bridge again and took a drive down Route 6 to Orleans. To me it appeared smaller and less impressive than it did before and had become much more of a tourist town. But the Yacht Club was still there.