Joseph Opsitnick

When Joseph Opsitnick of Verona went into the Navy in 1943 he had no idea that he would be part of one of World War IIs most famous events. In fact, Joe’s wartime participation was rather quiet until this famous day.

Born in Crabtree and raised in Wilkinsburg, Joe graduated from Wilkinsburg High School in 1942. By 1943 he found himself in the Navy and training at Sampson Naval Training Base in Sampson, New York. Located on the shores of Seneca Lake, the 2500-acre camp occupied four and half miles of lakefront. In Joe’s Naval boot camp training company were many who knew plumbing, piping and electrical trades, but out of them all he was selected to attend a Boiler Making School in Norfolk, Virginia. Joe said he was probably selected because he knew algebra and numbers well. Here he was trained to repair and keep the ships boilers working. After his training he was assigned to the USS Jenks, a Destroyer Escort Ship (DE-665). The USS Jenks began serving the all-important Atlantic convoy lanes as an escort ship during the great buildup of men and supplies in Europe.

Interestingly, the USS Jenks had its hull laid down by the Dravo Corporation in Pittsburgh on May 12, 1943. It was launched on September 11th of that year and commissioned in New Orleans on January 19, 1944. Joe got to serve on a ship initially built in Pittsburgh for the remaining years of the war. His service was being a member of Repair Team One for the ship’s boilers.

Joe was about to embark on the trip of his life. The USS Jenks made only one Atlantic trip as an escort ship. Returning from England it was reassigned to training exercises and then sent to Norfolk to join the escort carrier Guadalcanal and her hunter-killer group under Captain Daniel V. Gallery. A hunter-killer group would consist of one escort carrier and several destroyer escorts. These escorts were sent to hunt down u-boats that had been sighted and driven under water by aircraft. The naval ships in Joe’s group were Carrier Guadalcanal (CVE-60) and five escort vessels under Commander Frederick S. Hall, USN: Pillsbury (DE-133) Pope DE-134), Flaherty (DE-135), Chatelain (DE-149), and Jenks (DE-665). Joe’s ship, the USS Jenks, was the only destroyer still powered by boilers instead of diesel. They departed for May 15, 1944 for the Canary Islands.

American and British cryptanalysts had already partially broken the German naval code. With this information they sent the Guadalcanal task group to the African coast near Cape Verde where they knew U-boats were operating. The precise location was not known because they could not interpret the entire code. Germans practiced sending these coordinates in separately coded messages. The Navy Historical Center report said, “By adding this regional information together with high-frequency direction finding fixes (HF/DF)--which tracked U-boats by radio transmissions--and air and surface reconnaissance, the Allies could narrow down a U-boat's location to a small area. The Guadalcanal task group intended to use all these methods to find and capture the next U-boat they encountered through the use of trained boarding parties”.

It was June 4, 1944 at 11:09 a.m., as the group headed back to Casablanca for fuel, when a contact was made and determined to be a German submarine. Joe, his ship and the group were about to become history. A series of maneuvers began as the group’s ships attempted to attack the submarine. Wildcat Fighters from the carrier were launched and they spotted the sub and started firing at it to direct the ships. The ships began laying depth charges and five minutes later the sub surfaced with its rudder jammed, lights and electrical machinery out, and water coming in.

The Naval Historical Center account tells the rest of the story: “As the submarine broached only 700 yards from Chatelain, the escort opened fire with all automatic weapons that would bear and swept the U-boat's decks. Pillsbury, Lieutenant George W. Casselman, USNR, and Jenks, Lieutenant Commander Julius F. Way, USN, farther away, and the two "Wildcats" overhead all joined the shooting and added to the intense barrage. Wounded in the torrent of fire and believing that his submarine had been mortally damaged by Chatelain's depth charges, the commanding officer of U-505 quickly ordered his crew to abandon ship. So quickly was this command obeyed that scuttling measures were left incomplete and the submarine's engines continued to run.

Captured U-Boat 505 June 4, 1944

“The jammed rudder caused the partially-submerged U-505 to circle to the right at a speed near seven knots. Seeing the U-boat turning toward him, the commanding officer of Chatelain ordered a single torpedo fired at the submarine in order to forestall what appeared to be a similar attack on himself. The torpedo passed ahead of U-505, which by now appeared to be completely abandoned. About two minutes later, the escort division commander ordered cease-fire and called away Pillsbury's boarding party.

“While Chatelain and Jenks picked up the fifty four survivors, Pillsbury sent its motor whaleboat to the circling submarine where an eight-man party boarded the sub. Despite the probability of U-505 sinking or blowing up at any minute and not knowing what form of resistance they might meet below, David and his men clambered up the conning tower and then down the hatches into the boat itself. After a quick examination proved the U-boat was completely deserted (except for one dead man on deck - the only fatality of the action), the boarders set about bundling up charts, code books, and papers, disconnecting demolition charges, closing valves, and plugging leaks. By the time the flood of water had been stopped, the U-boat was low in the water and down by the stern.”

Joe said they began to tow the boat back to Port Royal Bay, Bermuda, a 1,700-mile trip. After reaching there they were interred to keep the sailors out of the public eye and prevent news of the capture from reaching the enemy. This was critical to allow time to decode the seized cryptology machines. The Naval Historical Center account indicated that “The task group itself was awarded the Presidential Unit citation, in part because of the unique and difficult feat of boarding and capturing an enemy warship on the high-seas--something the U.S. Navy had not accomplished since the 19th-century. More significantly, however, the capture of codebooks on U-505 allowed American cryptanalysts to occasionally break the special "coordinate" code in enciphered German messages and determine more precise locations for U- boat operating areas. In addition to vectoring in hunter-killer task groups on these locations, these coordinates enabled Allied convoy commanders to route shipping away from known U-boat locations, greatly inhibiting the effectiveness of German submarine patrols.”

The U-505 submarine finally found its way to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry where it is today. Joe went to Chicago to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the sub’s capture. Today, there have been movies, documentaries and many books about this historical event. Joe still keeps contact with his war buddies and even the former German sailors come to events and have written books.

Joe entered the service late so he didn’t get discharged until 1946. He returned home, went to Robert Morris and earned a degree in accounting. He first joined A & P Market in Pittsburgh, then Mine Safety and later Westinghouse before retiring. His wife passed away eight years ago. He has two grown children, one an attorney and the other an electrician. Joe is very active as Adjutant & Quarter Master of the Verona Veterans of Foreign Wars, is a member of the American Legion and Eagles and St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church.

Be sure to watch the interesting video interview with Joe at: http://www.alle-kiskitoday.com/webcasts/1639

You can read the Naval Historic Center’s account at: http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq91-1.htm