The World War 2 Radio Podcast · Brick Pickle Media LLC

Away All Boarding Parties - Capture of U-505

·32 min

The World War II Radio Podcast opens with familiar wartime broadcast tones and then shifts into a later radio drama about a famous naval capture. This installment, "Away All Boarding Parties," comes from Cavalcade of America and first aired on November 18, 1952. It tells the story of the escort carrier USS Guadalcanal and the North Atlantic capture of the German submarine U-505. The June 1944 seizure is framed as a wartime triumph with intelligence value that reached well beyond the fight itself. The capture was kept secret until the war ended so the Axis would not learn about the code books and other information gathered by the Allies. The dramatized action starts in the middle of the chase. A report comes in that the submarine has been badly damaged, but not destroyed. The task group commander wants it brought to the surface if possible, and the language stays clipped and urgent. Aircraft mark the submarine’s position. Destroyers move in closer. A VHF transmission cuts through the action with a call to use shock oil. Soon the black shape of the conning tower rises just below the surface, less than 700 yards from a destroyer. Once the sub is visible, the scene turns into a controlled attack. Wildcats dive in with machine guns blazing, while the destroyers fire smaller weapons meant to drive the crew off rather than sink the prize. Orders are barked to cease fire and lower boats for survivors. Then comes the assessment of the damaged boat: flooded after torpedo room, four more torpedo tubes forward, possible sabotage crew aboard, and the unsettling fact that it is still moving in circles. The commander weighs the danger against what is inside the submarine. Fourteen demolition charges stand against the code books and the intelligence haul waiting below deck. The episode closes the loop on what was captured and why it mattered. It notes that the submarine was donated to Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry in 1954, where it remains on display today. The result is part battle drama, part historical record, and part preserved broadcast artifact. It also marks the podcast’s broader turn into post-war news, documentaries, and entertainment programs about the war, while still keeping one foot in wartime radio itself.

As heard by us

A tense 1952 radio drama about the U-505 capture, told as wartime history with broadcast grit.

This 1952 Cavalcade of America episode tells the U-505 capture with plain wartime urgency. It moves fast from ship-to-ship commands to the quieter payoff afterward, when the intelligence haul gives the story its real weight.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Want a wartime capture story where the prize is intelligence, not just gunfire?

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify