06/05/2026
On this day, 82 years ago, June 4, 1944, 41-year-old Lieutenant Junior Grade Albert Leroy David stood on the deck of the USS Pillsbury.
His hunter-killer task group was operating off the coast of French West Africa.
They had just blasted the German Type IXC submarine U-505 to the surface with a relentless barrage of depth charges.
The 252-foot enemy vessel was circling erratically at five knots with its rudder jammed.
German naval protocol dictated that crews must scuttle compromised ships with explosives to prevent capture.
David volunteered to lead a nine-man boarding party in a motor whaleboat across the rough Atlantic swells to secure the hostile submarine.
He knew the U-boat could sink or violently detonate at any given second.
The outer hull of the submarine had just been swept by heavy machine gun fire from the surrounding American destroyers.
David did not wait to see if armed Germans remained below.
He boldly plunged straight down the conning tower hatch into the dark and rapidly flooding belly of the submarine.
Radioman Third Class Stanley Wdowiak and Torpedoman's Mate Third Class Arthur Knispel closely followed him down the ladder.
Inside, they found the control room deserted but taking on water fast.
David immediately directed his men to locate and secure the opened sea valves to stop the deadly flooding.
They worked frantically to disarm 14 separate demolition charges the Germans had left behind to destroy the boat.
With the threat of a massive explosion hanging over them, David and his men remained below deck.
They quickly gathered invaluable intelligence that the fleeing German crew had failed to destroy.
They seized a highly classified four-rotor M4 Enigma decoding machine, current codebooks, and grid charts.
The United States military kept this capture an absolute secret to prevent the German high command from realizing their communications were compromised.
The Red Cross was never notified of the capture, and the U-505 crewmen were secretly held in an isolated prisoner of war camp in Ruston, Louisiana.
David stayed inside the damaged submarine, directing the initial salvage operations.
He remained aboard until a fully equipped salvage team arrived from the es**rt carrier USS Guadalcanal.
They worked together to make the vessel seaworthy for a massive 1,700-mile tow to Bermuda.
His actions marked the first time the United States Navy successfully boarded and captured an enemy warship on the high seas since 1815.
The intelligence secured from the U-505 allowed Allied codebreakers to read German naval communications and heavily influenced the outcome of the Battle of the Atlantic.
The U-505 itself survived the war and was eventually towed up the St. Lawrence River and through the Great Lakes to become a permanent museum ship in Chicago.
David survived the battle and the remainder of the war.
He later earned a promotion to the rank of Lieutenant.
He died of a massive heart attack in Norfolk, Virginia, on September 17, 1945.
His sudden death occurred just weeks after the Japanese surrender and less than a month before he was scheduled to receive the Medal of Honor.
President Harry S. Truman presented the nation's highest military award for valor posthumously to his widow.
