‘I went behind the periscope housing and took off the cover of the sea strainer. This let an 11-inch stream of water into the boat and I thought, `This will do it!’ I climbed topside and helped four other men get a big life raft loose. The destroyers and planes were giving us hell, firing anti-aircraft, anti-personnel and high-explosive weapons at our boat. We swam away from the sub as quickly as possible. The planes were shooting the water between us and the boat, chasing us away from U-505 like a cat playing with mice. But none of us was crazy enough to want to go back to that boat because she was sinking fast! Only the very front of the boat and the top of the conning tower was still above the water. Well, the American skipper must have had some men who were very brave, or very crazy, because they boarded the sub, found the sea strainer cover and closed it. They somehow kept the boat afloat and took it in tow.

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‘We were picked up by destroyers and brought to the carrier, where they locked us in a cage just below the flight deck. The heat from the carrier’s engines was so terrible that we lost 20 or 30 pounds during those weeks from sweating. They brought us to the Bermudas for about six weeks, where we gained some weight and began looking human again.

‘We were transported to Louisiana and sent to a special prisoner-of-war camp for anti-Nazis. You see, that particular camp wasn’t covered by the Geneva Convention. The Americans didn’t want the Red Cross to interview us and let our navy know that a U-boat had been captured. We worked there in Louisiana on farms and in logging camps until 1945, when we were transferred to Great Britain. We were confined there until December of 1947, when we were finally released.’

Through an incredible series of events, U-505 survives today, on display at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry. More than half a million visitors a year tour the boat’s decks and gaze at her battle-damaged conning tower.

Hans Goebeler lives in semiretirement in central Florida with his wife and daughter. He makes a modest living selling coffee mugs emblazoned with pictures of famous U-boat captains and other German war heroes, and his eyes still sparkle with life when telling about his days aboard the U-505 — the U-boat that wouldn’t die.

This article was written by John P. Vanzo and originally appeared in the July 1997 issue of World War II magazine.

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