My Favorite Place In Chicago

The Museum of Science and Industry is a great museum with a long history and some great exhibits. They do a great job of preserving history and at the same time keeping things current and fun for the kids. For me it's the older exhibits that keep me coming back. When I was in Chicago before I visited and had a great time, but my camera was not up to the task of getting good photos inside with the weird museum lighting. This time I took my trusty Canon G12 and got some great shots.

My favorite exhibits are the U-boat U-505 in it's own exhibit and the Spitfire and Stuka that are part of the Transportation Gallery. The U-boat is the last surviving example of its type and was captured by the USS Chatelain on June 4, 1944. The story is really interesting and worth reading. You can find most of it on the museum website, just follow the link above. The Navy crews that fought against the U-boat fleet were courageous and persevered until they had neutralized the U-boat threat, and are deserving of an exhibit like this to show what a formidable enemy they were up against. I'm posting a LOT of pictures on this one so take your time and check em out.

The flag that flew on the USS Chatelain the day U-505 was captured.

The first sight you get of the submarine as you walk into the room.

Zoomed in on the conning tower.

Another view.

Part of the display, the painting is the U-boat almost sunk as the U.S. crew fights to keep her afloat so she can be towed back to U.S. territory. The cut outs of the men are the members of the USS Chatelain's crew who boarded the sub and made the capture.

They have a torpedo mounted as it would look as it exits the torpedo tube,

That is one long boat!

The conning tower, you can see the holes made by the .50 cal and other deck guns fired by the USS Chatelain to try to get the u-boat crew to surrender or abandon ship.

Form the lower part of the display.

That's a piston from her engine. It's actually the spare piston that was onboard when she was captured.

The Enigma machines that helped the German U-boat war be so successful. Luckily we finally captured one and broke the codes.

This is the Transportation Gallery from the end of the upstairs balcony. You can see the model train set up downstairs. It's a model of Chicago and some of the country between Chicago and Seattle, WA.

The British Supermarine Spitfire. This is the aircraft that turned the airwar over Britain around and started the defeat of the Third Reich.

Close up o the cockpit and those are the actual kills this aircraft made. This aircraft was donated to the museum right after the war and has not been restored. This is "as donated" condition.

You can see the Spitfire is closing in on the Stuka.

The German Stuka dive bomber. This is one of only two still in existence. It was donated with the Spitfire and is in "as donated" condition including holes in the airframe and wings from where it was attacked on the ground before it was captured.

Zoomed in on the cockpit.

You can see some of teh bullet holes in this shot.

From the floor looking up.

I HAD to take a pic of the white trash trailer park that is part of the train model ;-)

Looking down at the model train set up.

Well there you have a good overview of why I love this museum. I also like the Space section, but it was so over run with kids (spring break) that I didn't even try to get in there and take pics. I still have more to show you so stick around and as I said before I will get back to the bikes, but this is what I've been doing lately so I'm sharing it as well.