George/Joe

U-505 was equipped with 14 five pound permanent scuttling charges distributed throughout the boat. I can not tell you the exact location of these charges. The charges were set on a timer which provided the delay necessary for the crew to get off before the charges exploded. The location of the timer was known to only a few of the boats officers. It was the duty of the Chief Engineer to set the timer before he abandoned ship. In this instance he did not set the charges because, as he later stated, he did not think it necessary because the boat was already sinking.

American intelligence (Tenth Fleet) had made it known to all the CVE's that at this time in the war, all the u-boats had been equipped with 14 scuttling charges on timer and this was known to the men in the boarding parties. It was of course a major concern to the first boarding party from USS Pillsbury who went down the hatch, since they had every reason to believe those charges had been set and they had no way to know when they might go off. Gunner Burr from USS Guadalcanal in the second boarding party found 13 of the charges and disarmed them but the 14th charge was not found until about two weeks later when the Task Group arrived in Bermuda with U-505 in tow. All the men in the salvage parties who worked inside that sub knew there was an undiscovered charge in the boat and it made their jobs a little more harrowing, especially when it came to working on electrical circuits about which little was known.

Don B