 The old Navy of glorious tradition, of John Paul Jones, Stephen Decatur, and Commodore Bainbridge. A Navy of wooden ships and iron men. Men from Agungwit, Gloucester, and Clemens. Ships from Baltimore, Talmouth and Salem. Men from Chinkatee, Buford and Marblehead. Mariners born and bred, the sea was their home, and on it they carried the fight to the enemy from the waters of Long Island Sound to the shores of the Indian Ocean. They fought a different kind of fight from today's long range action. They slugged it out, yard armed to yard armed. Then swarmed over the side and boarded the enemy with Cutlass and Marlin's fight. Could our sailors of today max the cold, doer courage of the old timers? Could they max their dash and superlative seamen ships? A hard question to answer, for the command, away borders, hadn't been heard in the United States Navy since 1815. Not that is, until the morning of June 4th, 1944, when it sounded crisp and clear from the bridge of the USS Guadalcanal off the west coast of Africa. That's our story, but first let's go back. Back to the desperate struggle of 1941 and 1942, the battle of the Atlantic. For a time we were losing that battle. The ships that were sunk and the cargoes that went down with them were sorely needed in England, in Africa, in Russia. Month by month in 1941 and 1942, the toll mounted. No ship was safe for the raiders of Admiral Jernitsworth everywhere. Our cargo vessels were sunk within sight of our boardwalks. Their flames lighted the very streets of our blacked out cities. We had to find the answer. And we did. In one of the most versatile fighting teams that ever put to sea, the Baby Flattop and the Destroyer Escort. Born of dire necessity, the Baby Flattop was a mongrel, a merchant ship turned carrier. But she was a mongrel with a nasty set of teeth, as the card, the bolt, and the block island soon proved to Hitler's pack of untraceable. The carrier's aerial patrols cover that stretch of ocean out of reach of shore-based aircraft, where the U-boats once worked in comparative safety. Now, any sub which surfaces within their ken is promptly machine-gun, rocket or bomb. To complete the team, the pilots have at their back in call the swift and deadly destroyer escorts. These are light destroyers, modified for mass production. Light perhaps, but fast, shifty, and packing a murderous wallop in her gun, for field use, and death-charging, the DE is more than a match for any U-boats. This was the team that broke the back of the submarine magazine. The crew is our Flattop, the USS Waddle Canal, fresh out of the Kaiser Guards, and with a name that is a dedication to all that is bravest in the American spirit. And here is her crew, as new as their ship, fresh out of boot camp, and green as the cornfields that some of them come from. Boys from Scranton, Fort Worth, Potomac, boys from Terrahut, Muncie, and Medicine Lodge, never saw the sea before. If the crew is green, the skipper is not. Captain Dan Gallery is a pioneer of naval aviation. On May 15, 1944, a task group of the Atlantic fleet heads out to sea, with orders to operate against submarines to the west of the Cape Verde Island. The group comprises the USS Waddle Canal and her five destroyer escorts. Hillsbury, the Chattelaine, the Colton, the Clarke, and the Jenkins. At the departure conference, Captain Gallery and the destroyer skippers decide upon a daring plan of action. If during this cruise they can bring a sub to bay, they will not attempt to sink her as soon as she surfaces. Instead, they will spray her with small stuff, put crews over the side in small boats, and attempt to board and capture her. Daring did we say, fantastic is the word for boarding a wounded U-boat on the high seas. But the prize would be priceless. Naval intelligence could use a completely equipped enemy vessel. So during the voyage, prize crews were trained and rehearsed for this bold hope. Here's the hand-picked boarding party of the Waddle Canal. Let's meet some of them. Chief photographer's mate Clifford Werla. His job will be to get inside the sub, take pictures of all installations in case she cannot be kept afloat. Chief pharmacist Raymond Jackson, Fredericksburg, Virginia. He served 10 years in the Navy. Lieutenant J.G. Milo Keck, a veteran sea dog with 25 years naval experience. Ensign Fred Middall, an electrician's mate first class William Stein. Stein, a crack electrician, will assist Ensign Middall in the job of checking the batteries and all operating motors of the enemy vessel. Ensign James Griffin and machinist mate second class Walter Waller. Ensign Griffin will check the sub's diesel engine. Waller is to be engineer of the party's whale boat. In command of the boarding and salvage party, is commander Earl Trocino, engineering officer of the Waddle Canal. Over on the USS Pillsbury, a similar party is being trained by Lieutenant Albert David. On June 4th, 1944, the task group is searching for a sub reported 150 miles off the coast of French West Africa, when suddenly at 11-10. Chief of Blue Jay, I have a possible sound contact. Nothing startling for the moment. Possible sound contacts are made every day, but a flat top has no business near them. With her high free board and her thin skin, she is a sitting duck for any sub which surfaces within torpedo range. So the Waddle Canal swings away, while the two nearest destroyers break off to assist the Chattelaine, which has made the sound contact. And the Waddle Canal's patrol of two Wildcat fighters is ordered to the scene. Then commander Knott of the Chattelaine analysis. Contact evaluated as sub, and making attack. Almost simultaneously, both fighter planes sight the long, dark shape of the submarine running 60 feet below the surface. And sing out, hide it, stop. At this point, the sub reverses course, temporarily shaking off the destroyer, but the Wildcats can see the sub and reveal its position by firing their guns in the water at the spot where the sub is disappearing. This is a remarkable example of aircraft actually directing the attack of a surface vessel on a U-boat. At 11-21, the destroyer makes a depth charge attack. All ships are at battle stations, and all eyes are glued on the Chattelaine. The guns of a task group are loaded with anti-personnel rather than armor-piercing ammunition. At 11-22 and a half, the wounded U-boat surfaces right in the middle of the task group. Come at firing, the plane's open at first. Now the draw really began. For it on land, these firing away all boarding parties, the Nazis are scrambling overboard. There are the Nazis in the water in their rubber wraps, but there may be more on board ready for business. Away all boarding parties, the sub's rudder is jammed, and she is running in a tight circle to the right. But the planes are all set to open up if she makes a false move. This is it. For the first time since 1815, the United States Navy boards a foreign enemy man of war on the high seas. The first boarding party has swarmed aboard, only one dead Nazi on deck. There may be live ones below, but our lads tumble down the hatch and find to their amazement that the U-505 is all theirs, all theirs that is, if she doesn't sink or blow up. Here comes the Pillsbury making knots, and there is a second whale boat with a boarding party from the Guadalcanal. The Nazis have done a hurried, frantic job of scuttling. A solid 8-inch stream of water is pouring through an open strainer, but Lieutenant David and his boys find the covers, slap it back in place, and secure it just in time. A few minutes more and it would have been too late. The end rush of water is checked. Each man has a different job to do, has rehearsed it for months, and now that the chips are down, they come through. The ship is thoroughly searched, but she's still running wild, and the Pillsbury and more boarders are chasing her. Finally the Pillsbury orders, stop sub-engine, but when the plies crew complies, the subs sink so alarmingly that they throw the switches to full speed ahead and the chase begins all over again. Meanwhile, the chateau lane is busy rescuing some very wet members of the master race. Amazingly, all but one are safe, and brought on board the chateau lane. Dry clothing and cigarettes are passed around. The tradition of the sea is honorably and punctiliously respected. These men are the cream of the German Navy. They just can't believe that their ship has been captured, and by members of a decadent democracy. At last the Pillsbury comes alongside and passes a line to the boarding party, a neat bit of seamanship. But watch out, that sub is still as dangerous as a wounded shark. She swings into the Pillsbury, and her bow flippers rip a long underwater gash in the de-eased in place. Flooding two main compartments clear up to the water line. The destroyer has to cut loose and back clear. The Pillsbury radio says she has to be told to stay afloat, but we don't think a destroyer can do it. So the Guadalcanal heads over and says on the TVS, destroyer stand clear. I am going to take her and tow myself. Now we'll see whether this aviator skipper can handle the ship. It's a ticklish job hooking a flat top to a sinking sub on the high seas, and in the middle of the Atlantic U-boat lane. Look how far down she is. It goes the hatch to keep the swells from pouring down on the boys working inside. If she goes down now, they all go down with her. Let's get that line out. There it goes, the messenger line with the big tow line at the end. This is a job to test the metal of veteran seamen. Four out of five of those boys on the subs folks who are green, but there is no fumbling. The tow line is made fast, and the anxious skipper heaves a sigh of relief as the sub makes way and rises in the water. She is safe again for the time being, and under a new flag. The task group forms up and on orders from the Navy Department head for Bermuda, a grueling 2,500-mile haul with a riddled, waterlogged U-boat in tow. Normal flight operations are resumed and carried on day and night, despite the greatly reduced speed of the glottal canal. At times there are only 15 knots of wind across the flight deck, and it's axiomatic that a flyer has to have 25 knots to land on a baby flat top, so these pilots land anyway and without an axiom. The prisoners are transferred from the overcrowded destroyer to the carrier. The one in the stretcher is Obeloyton, out Jersey here alone, captain of the U-505. The first man out of the conning tower, he was instantly blown overboard by a shell. During the voyage, they're brought on deck for exercises, and a thorough salt shower. On the 7th of June, the fleet tug Abnaki joins up, and the tow is transferred from the glottal canal. Now comes the most anxious moment of the crews. As she loses way, Junior, as the crew have risen sun, sinks lower and lower in the water. The salvage party works desperately to take all movable weights out of the U-boat. Then as the transfer is completed and the Abnaki gets underway, the clutches on the subs engines are released, and her propellers recharge her batteries. With power aboard, her pumps work once more, and her tanks are blown out. Now she rides again at full surface trim. On June 19th, the U-505 was towed into the Muna, and there remains, as a prize of war, one less wolf to hunt with the pack. If the man of the old Navy had been looking down from some quarter-deck in the sky, they've seen strange things, steel ships maneuvering at high speeds, roaring mechanical monsters catapulted from their tanks, and an enemy vessel heaving up from the depths. But one thing is familiar. One thing has changed. The courage, resolution and hearty seamanship of the men of our Navy.