WWII

U-505 Tour

When we were planning our trip to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, the U-505 tour of the only German submarine in the United States wasn’t originally on my, um…sonar. The money we had saved for our visit was earmarked for the Lego exhibit. But then I discovered that they have a special school rate for tours and exhibits, which they kindly extend to homeschoolers. So we ended up getting tickets not only for Brick by Brick, but for the U-505 tour, as well, for a little less than I was planning on spending on the Lego exhibit alone!

The tour, which lasts about a half and hour, is very well narrated, and includes many sound effects and light changes, which really make you feel like you’re in the middle of a battle. It was really interesting to see and smell the history of the boat, and being on board really makes you understand just how cramped the quarters were.

For those who don’t have time for the tour, or don’t want to pay for the tickets, there is still plenty to learn about the U-505 in the surrounding exhibit:

I’m so glad we were able to find a way to go on this tour…we all learned a lot, and it really made us feel like we were experiencing the history of the boat and the time period!

Quote of the Day

The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the World War by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. All hearts go out to the fighter pilots, whose brilliant actions we see with our own eyes day after day, but we must never forget that all the time, night after night, month after month, our bomber squadrons travel far into Germany, find their targets in the darkness by the highest navigational skill, aim their attacks, often under the heaviest fire, often with serious loss, with deliberate, careful discrimination, and inflict shattering blows upon the whole of the technical and war-making structure of the Nazi power. On no part of the Royal Air Force does the weight of the war fall more heavily than on the daylight bombers who will play an invaluable part in the case of invasion and whose unflinching zeal it has been necessary in the meanwhile on numerous occasions to restrain… Winston Churchill

Quote of the Day

But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour. Winston Churchill

Quote of the Day

Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old. Winston Churchill