Museum of Science and Industry

Today, Friday, was a rainy, windy day....a perfect day to spend inside a museum! We visited Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry mainly because we wanted to learn more about a German U-boat that was captured during WWII. We first heard about U-505 when we read the book, Shadow Divers, a book we highly recommend, about New Jersey amateur divers finding a wreck off the coast of New Jersey which turned out to be another German U-boat that no one knew about. Before diving on the wreck, which was too deep for light to penetrate, they came to Chicago to "memorize" the details of U-505 to better prepare for their dives. 

Captain Daniel Gallery, a Chicago native, commanding the aircraft carrier Guadalcanal along with 5 destroyers, went hunting U-boats off the African coast in 1944, hoping to capture one with its treasure of secret documents and decoders that would help the Allies stop the devastating attacks on Merchant ships. On June 4, 1944, the crew of U-505 surrendered after setting explosives and opening hatches to sink their sub. Miraculously, the boarding crew was able to keep the sub from sinking or blowing-up! It was towed to Bermuda and, under penalty of death, no one could tell what happened, or else the Germans would change all their codes. The families were notified that the men and ship were MIA...and they never learned the truth for almost a whole year. 58 of the 59 German crew members survived and were POW's in Louisiana until the end of the war!

U-505 eventually was scheduled to be used as target practice by the Navy when "Admiral" Gallery intervened and managed to have the sub towed to Chicago to become part of the Museum of Science and Technology. The moving cost of $250,000 was raised privately. After deteriorating outdoors for about 50 years, it was restored and moved indoors. 

 Captain Gallery

 The boarding crew, with the sinking sub behind them

The stern of the almost 300 ft long sub

Here are some other interesting things about Chicago....

 When Soldiers' Field was renovated, it kept its classical facade, but the inside was modernized. It looks like a space ship has landed on top!!!

Marina City is commonly called The Corn Cobs. The producers of The Jetsons got permission to copy this design for their futuristic housing. No wonder it looked so familiar!!!

This sculpture, Nuclear Energy by Henry Moore, is above the site of the first nuclear reactor at the University of Chicago.

Chicago is called The City in the Garden. There are beautiful flowers EVERYWHERE!