Reminiscences of Rear Adm. Daniel V. Gallery, USN (Ret.)

Rear Admiral Daniel Gallery (1901–1977) was the eldest of four brothers who all had careers in the navy and rose to the rank of Rear Admiral. He was a career aviator and saw extensive action in World War II. In 1943 he commissioned and took command escort carrier USS Guadalcanal(CVE-6) and joined an antisubmarine Task Group in the Atlantic to hunt German U-Boats. Elements of the task group sank U-544 in January 1944, and U-515 and U-68 on two successive days in April 1944. Then-Captain gallery may be best remembered for the events of 4 June 1944 when his task group captured U-505 after driving her to the surface. A boarding party from the destroyer escort USS Pillsbury (DE-133) succeeded in capturing the submarine and its highly sought-after Enigma code machine and code books. U-505 became the first foreign man-of-war captured in battle on the high seas by the U.S. Navy since the War of 1812. Gallery himself chronicled the adventure in Twenty Million Tons Under the Sea. After the war, Gallery barely escaped court-martial for publicly disagreeing with the Truman Administration’s plans to reduce the scope and size of the Navy to focus on strategic nuclear bombing in what became known as the “Revolt of the Admirals." Gallery continued in his career until he retired in 1960.