On 4 June, 1944 a U.S. Navy hunter-killer group, using secretly decoded information, achieved two important military victories: the capture of the U-505 submarine and the recovery of an Enigma code machine.

My team at Christopher Chadbourne & Associates worked closely with the Museum of Science and Industry’s content and design team to conceptualize, develop 3-D and graphic elements, and prepare the bid documentation package for the U-505 exhibit, which opened to rave reviews and record audiences in June of 2005.

The exhibit begins by establishing the contextual environment of WWII, the magnitude of the U-Boat threat, and the formation of the hunter-killer task force. Visitors descend to a mapping room where sets and scrim projections portray the tracking of U-boats in the Atlantic. They then segue to the bridge of the Guadalcanal and witness a combination of real and re-created footage capturing the sighting, forcing to the surface, strafing, and boarding of the wounded U-505. Emerging into the below ground chamber they see 280-foot sub-torpedoes firing from the sub’s hull. They tour or bypass the sub, see a filmed re-creation of the boarding experience, learn what life was like on board and then partake in the science of submarines; “How Subs Work,” “How Subs Fight,” “How Subs Communicate,” etc. through a series of large scale interactives including motion based user-controlled “rides.”