Hunter Killers

Seaman 1/C Stephen Hruska, 1944
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The German submarine U-505 was captured June 4, 1944 -- 65 years ago and a day. One of the sailors involved was 23-year-old Seaman 1st Class Stephen Andrew Hruska, Ranger's father.

Seaman Hruska's story is not so different from that of many of his fellows. Born in 1921 in SW Pennsylvania to immigrant Slovakian parents, after graduating the eighth grade he entered the hardscrabble world of coal mining. He was later drafted, and spent 22 months aboard the USS Chatelain (DE 149), part of Task Group 22.3, a Hunter - Killer group in the Atlantic.

He served during the Battle of the Atlantic, in the Mediterranean, the Carribean, and ran convoy duty to Russia. He was aboard the USS Chatelain for his entire wartime service, and his combat station was dropping the fantail depth charges.

In addition to capturing the U-505, the Chatelain was also involved in sinking several Nazi U-boats in the battle of the Atlantic: the U-515 [9 Apr 44]; U-68 [10 Apr 44] and the U-546 [24 Apr 45] -- the last kill of a Nazi U-boat in that battle. The Chatelain earned five battle stars for its WW II service.

From one of the German sailors captured that day: "[H]ell came over us. Whole series of depth charges exploded with their hard, steely and nerve-killing noise quite near us. The U505 went down like a dive bomber."

The capture of U505 was a major historical event in the control of the Atlantic during World War Two. U505 codebooks, Enigma machine, and other secret materials found on board assisted Allied code breaking operations. All but one of U-505's crew were rescued by the Navy task group.

The submarine was towed to Bermuda in secret, her crew was interned at a US prisoner of war camp and the Navy classified the capture as top secret and prevented its discovery by the Germans. She is one of six U-boats that were captured by Allied forces during World War II, and one of four German World War II U-boats that survive as museum ships. U505 is now on display at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Illinois. The U-505 was credited with sinking 47,000 tons of allied shipping, including three American ships (courtesy Byron Spires, ed., Havana Herald.)

From U.S. Navy accounts:

"Although sonar contacts are frequent and do not always mean submarines, the Chatelaine turned toward the object immediately and prepared to attack.

"But in the brief moments required to identify the contact definitively as a submarine, the Chatelain had come so close that her depth charges would not sink fast enough to intercept the U-boat.

"The Chatelain steadied up on her bearing and moved swiftly in for the kill. A full pattern of depth charges, set for 60 foot target, exploded in the water around the U-boat. As their detonation threw geysers a large oil slick spread on the water and the fighter planes overhead radiod jubilently, "You struck oil! Sub is surfacing.

"Just 6 1/2 minutes after the Chatelain's first attack, the U-boat was on the surface, a wounded but still formidable enemy."

The rest is history, living on in an 88-year-old seaman's memory in Euclid, Ohio. Seaman 1/C Hruska swears he fired the depth charge that brought up the U-505.

And who is to say he is wrong?

This is dedicated to the 180+ seaman and officers assigned to the DE 149 during WW II. Hunter - Killers all!