U-505’s keel was laid by the Deutsche Werft shipyard in Hamburg on June 12, 1940, just as French resistance was crumbling before the onslaught of Germany’s blitzkrieg. By the time she was completed in August of the next year, more than 8 million tons of Allied shipping had been sunk, and U-boats had replaced the Luftwaffe as the gravest threat to Britain’s survival. The situation in the Atlantic had reached such a critical stage that the United States, technically still neutral, was providing escort ships for Allied convoys to England; the escorts reported or attacked any U-boats they encountered. It was during this decisive phase of the war that U-505 was officially commissioned into the German navy on August 26, 1941.

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U-505 was a type IXc submarine, one of the larger, long-range boats that U-boat fleet commander Admiral Karl Donitz intended to use on the periphery of the Atlantic. More than 252 feet long and displacing 1,232 tons when fully loaded, she was designed to operate most of the time on the surface, diving only when necessary for attack or escape. Her battery-driven electric motors could propel her at only 7 knots while submerged, though her diesel engines could make over 18 knots on the surface. She was armed with a 105mm deck gun located forward of the conning tower and a maximum of 22 torpedoes. Later in the war, when Allied planes began making surface attacks on German submarines, with devastating effect, her deck gun was removed and replaced with anti-aircraft weapons.

The first commander assigned to U-505 was Captain Axel Loewe, a thoroughly trained professional whose self-assured manner inspired immediate trust and confidence in the green crew of four officers and 56 men. The captain’s name, which means ‘Lion’ in German, provided the inspiration for the first insignia of U-505 — a rampaging lion holding an ax. A large shield bearing the ship’s new emblem was proudly painted on both sides of the conning tower, symbolizing the imprint Loewe’s forceful personality would have on his crew.

By the end of November 1941, after several training and shakedown cruises in the Baltic Sea, U-505 and her crew passed their final operational readiness tests. Live torpedoes were loaded on board, and the sub was pronounced ready for deployment to the war zone.

U-505’s first operational mission was its trip from the Kiel naval base to the submarine pens of the 2nd U-boat Flotilla at Lorient, France. Lorient, on the Bay of Biscay, was one of the primary sally ports for the German U-boats that were attempting to strangle England and prevent supplies from reaching her.

Following standard procedure, U-505 avoided the shorter but far more dangerous route from Kiel through the English Channel. She instead sailed north around Scotland and Ireland, then south and east to the Bay of Biscay. Although the boat encountered several British destroyers, extremely rough weather made it impossible for either side to launch an attack. Loewe had to content himself with spending the two-week cruise performing practice drills. By mid-February 1942, U-505 had been loaded with provisions and was ready to sail out of Lorient on her first real war patrol.

Goebeler arrived at Lorient two weeks before the boat. His original assignment was to U-105, but when a slot opened up on U-505, he eagerly accepted the reassignment. Reporting for duty in his brand-new uniform, Goebeler was surprised to learn that Loewe had selected him to be a control room operator rather than a mechanic, as he had been trained to be. ‘The Kapitän didn’t pay much attention to a person’s rank or education,’ Goebeler remembers. ‘On a U-boat you only cared about how well a man did his job. Some of the boys had even been in trouble with the police. But Loewe said: `Well, you’ve got to have brains and skills to get through tough situations. If they use those skills to keep my boat alive, I will be happy to have them!’ I was only a Machine Gefreiter [mechanic first class], but he assigned me to the control room of U-505 after we had a talk in his cabin.’

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