U-505 page 4

 U-505 page 4 by ric gustafson

Commander Daniel V Gallery wanted badly to fight in the Pacific. Instead, Gallery took a plum assignment commanding the US Navy Fleet Air Base in Reykjavik Iceland. Gallery called Iceland a cold strange land.

Gallery was born in Chicago in 1901. At 16, Gallery entered the US Naval Academy. Gallery met his wife on a blind date. Gallery and his wife Vera Lee Dunn were married in 1929. Gallery and his wife adopted 3 children. They bought a farm outside Fairfax Virginia.

One day, Commander Gallery gets his assignment. His orders are to hunt and kill U-Boats in the North Atlantic. 

Commander Gallery got depressed because they could not find a target. But on Aug 20 1942, Lieutenant Robert Hopgood and his crew flying a PBY Catalina did spot a target on the surface. It was the U-464. Hopgood dropped 6 depth charges. They crippled the boat. The U-Boat could not submerge.

Gallery was hoping they could capture the boat intact. This was because of what was on the boat. On board was a machine with a keyboard of the 26 letters of the alphabet. It was called an Enigma machine.

Because of the limitless number of combinations possible, the Germans considered the machine unbreakable. 

Before Gallery could board the boat, the crew had already destroyed their Enigma machine. The crew also threw the code books overboard.

One day, Gallery hoped to capture a boat intact and seize their Enigma machine.

research help: ' Codename Nemo' by Charles Lachman

Peace and God's blessings. Love Ric