TRUSHEIM-PHILLIP

HE  HELPED  TO  CAPTURE  A  GERMAN  U-BOAT

 

On June 4, 1944, an incident without historical precedent since 1815 occurred about 150-miles off the west coast of Africa – the boarding and capture during battle of an enemy warship on the high seas by the US Navy.  Phillip N. Trusheim was the coxswain of the whaleboat from the USS PILLSBURY (DE-133) which managed to board and capture the German submarine U-505 in this unique event.

 

In a 2004 interview, Trusheim said that he enlisted in the Navy in 1941 and was stationed at the Naval Air Station at Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, when the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor.  He remembers that he was very scared as he watched Japanese bombs fall around him that Sunday morning.  Less than a month later he was assigned to the USS WRIGHT (AV-1), a supply ship that delivered supplies throughout the South Pacific during the early days of WWII.  In early 1943 he was transferred to the USS PILLSBURY, a destroyer escort commissioned in June 1943.  In June 1944, PILLSBURY was escorting the escort aircraft carrier USS GUADALCANAL (CVE-60) as a member of antisubmarine hunter-killer Task Group 22.3 which had sailed from Norfolk on May 15, 1944, on its third mission.  During its first two forays in January and April, Task Group 22.3 had badly damaged one German U-boat and sunk three others.  CAPT Daniel V. Gallery, the task group commander aboard GUADALCANAL formed an audacious plan to force a damaged German U-boat to the surface, force its crew overboard, and then board and capture it before it sank.  On May 17, 1944, CAPT Gallery sent a message to his escort ships: “EACH ESCORT DRAW UP PLANS AND ORGANIZE A PARTY TO BOARD-CAPTURE AND TAKE SUB IN TOW IF OPPORTUNITY ARISES.”  CAPT Gallery later exclaimed, “The plan worked to perfection!”  During an interview in 2004, Trusheim remarked that although he thought the plan to capture a German submarine was “Nuts” when he first heard about it, he volunteered and was assigned duty as coxswain of the PILLSBURY boarding party whaleboat.

 

Until the bright and sunny morning of Sunday, June 4, 1944, the passage of Task Group 22.3 had been uneventful and with fuel running low CAPT Gallery had ordered them to make for Casablanca to refuel.  At 1109 one of the escorts reported, “WE ARE INVESTIGATING POSSIBLE SOUND CONTACT.”  At 1112, the escort signaled her confirmation of the contact as a submarine, later identified as the U-505, and fired a full pattern of hedgehogs at the submerged contact.  The contact-detonated hedgehogs missed their target.  Two Wildcat fighter planes from GUADALCANAL, which had been providing air cover, immediately commenced searching, quickly sighted the submerged U-boat and marked its location by firing into the water directly over it.  A second depth charge attack brought the damaged submarine to the surface where it found itself in the worst possible location as it was surrounded by TG 22.3 ships which commenced a heavy barrage of antipersonnel fire designed to force the crew overboard without causing serious structural damage.

 

At the orders of their commanding officer, the U-505 crew opened scuttling valves, set demolition charges and quickly dove overboard from the sinking U-boat.  Seeing the crew abandoning the U-boat, an order not heard aboard a U.S. Navy ship in over 100-years was sounded - “Away all boarding parties.”  The PILLSBURY whaleboat, with Trusheim at the tiller, commenced chasing the obviously sinking submarine which was moving at about 6-knots in a tight circle to the right with its rudder jammed from the depth charges, afterdeck completely submerged, the bow high and the conning tower barely awash.  Trusheim said it took him about 10 to 10 minutes to reach the U-505 which he did by cutting across its circling path. He ran his boat up the U-505's starboard side hoping that the pressure of the U-boat bearing to the right would aid him in butting the whaleboat up against the conning tower rail.  On reaching the U-505 the boarders managed to snag a railing with a boat hook and the boarders struggled to scramble aboard.  One member of the boarding party was not so fortunate and was seriously crushed when he fell between the whaleboat and conning tower, thus becoming the only American casualty of the operation. 

 

Once the boarding party was aboard the rapidly sinking U-505 they found that all of the crew had abandoned ship so they quickly set about their assigned duties of stopping the flow of water into the U-boat, locating and disarming explosive charges, and retrieving documents and equipment of very significant intelligence value.  Their herculean efforts were rewarded as they managed to keep U-505 afloat, eventually stop its engines, restore electricity and air pressure and pump out the water. The boarding party raced against time to perform the numerous superman tasks to keep their prize intact.  They took over the U-505 in a foundering condition, with water pouring in from all sides.  Most of the men had never set foot on a submarine but they managed to check the flow of water just a hair short of sinking.  If the U-505 had gone down it would have undoubtedly taken the boarders with her as the conning tower hatch had been closed to stop the flow of water as waves washed over the rapidly sinking U-boat.  As members of the boarding party struggled below, Trusheim continued to man the whaleboat and made trips to the PILLSBURY to return the seriously injured man for medical aid, and to obtain tools and equipment needed to keep the U-505 afloat.  During his 2004 interview Trusheim was asked if he had been scared during this action and he replied that he was too busy to be scared and that he had not been nearly as frightened as he was on December 7^th when watching Japanese bombs drop near him at Kaneohe Bay.

 

The Commander in Chief, US Atlantic Fleet, later remarked, “The Task Group's brilliant achievement in disabling, capturing and towing to a United States base a modern enemy man-of-war in combat on the high seas is a feat unprecedented in individual and group bravery, execution, and accomplishment in the Naval History of the United States.”

 

The whole Task Group 22.3 was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation.  The members of the PILLSBURY's boarding party, including Phillip Trusheim, were awarded the Silver Star for their heroic actions.

 

Submitted by CDR Roy A. Mosteller, USNR (Ret)