Albert David - World War II

World War II

David was recalled to active duty, though, on September 27, 1939, less than a month after World War II broke out in Europe with the German invasion of Poland.

Appointed machinist on May 13, 1942, David was assigned to the Submarine Repair Unit, San Diego on May 28, and served in that unit for five months. While there, he received his promotion to ensign on June 15. Reporting thence to the Naval Training School for diesel engineers at the Madison campus of the University of Wisconsin, for instruction, David ultimately reported for duty at the Naval Training Station, Naval Operating Base, Norfolk, before he traveled to Orange, Texas to assist in fitting out the destroyer escort USS Pillsbury (DE-133), which was commissioned at the Consolidated Steel Corporation yard on June 7, 1943.

Promoted to lieutenant (jg.) while Pillsbury was fitting out, David served in that ship as she operated in the Atlantic, escorting convoys into Casablanca and Gibraltar, and serving with a "hunter-killer" unit formed around USS Guadalcanal (CVE-60). He was serving as Pillsbury's assistant engineering and electrical officer when Guadalcanal's task group located a German submarine off Cape Blanco, French West Africa, on June 4, 1944 and forced it to the surface.

Pillsbury lowered a boat and sent a party of nine men, led by David, to board the U-boat, soon identified as U-505, which was still underway and running in a circle on the surface. Although he "had every reason to believe" that Germans were still below decks setting demolition charges and scuttling the ship, David led Pillsbury's men on board and down the conning tower hatch, and took possession of the ship. Although he found the sea flooding into the U-boat, David remained below directing the initial salvage operations—aware that at any moment the submersible could blow up or sink. Men from Guadalcanal arrived soon thereafter to aid in the battle to keep U-505 afloat, and David remained on board directing the salvage operations. As a result of his vigorous and heroic efforts, the valuable prize was eventually taken to Bermuda.

Promoted to lieutenant soon thereafter, David received the Medal of Honor for his part in the "first successful boarding and capture of an enemy man-of-war on the high seas by the United States Navy since 1815."

He died of a heart attack at Norfolk, Virginia, however, before the medal could be presented to him; it was presented by President Harry S. Truman to David's widow, Lynda Mae David, on October 5, 1945, in a ceremony at the White House.