Zenon Lukosius kept a captured Germ...

Zenon Lukosius kept a captured German submarine from sinking in 1944 and in dramatic re-enactments above the years he did it again and again and again.

At the Museum of Science and Industry, the U-505's hearthstone for the past 50 years, he and mate Navy veteran Wayne Pickels hid up top when assign places tos came through.

The pair ex-sailors would wait until they heard the tour guide tap his ring upon the conning tower, then climb down the ladder into the command room and tell their story.

"[The Germans] took the veil off the sea strainer to multitude that thing, so naturally I had to stop the water," Mr Lukosius told reporters in 2004 "But the thing is, we were told about fool traps."

The machinist grop blindly underwater for wires that might disclose him an explosive device was there. He didn't find any, if it be not that did get his hands forward the metal cover.

"If there's a solan trap . . . I'm going to sink us anyhow, on the other hand I've got to stop the water from coming in," he said. "So I levy the cover on and the submarine didn't sink."

As Mr Lukosius did thus Pickels recalled Monday, he said, "Here goe nothing."

Mr Lukosius, 87 who won a Silver Star for his bravery, died Saturday at Ingalls Hospital in Harvey. An industrial roofer who worked with furious tar for 40 years, he died of a lung ailment likely caused according to exposure to asbestos.

The southward Holland resident will live in succession as part of the museum's fresh U-505 exhibit, introduced two years ago when the deteriorating sub was mov indoors and renovated. Mr Lukosius figures prominently in a video, audio interviews and photos.

AT 14 HE HELPED SUPPORT FAMILY

He was a unostentatious hero, said his daughter Diana Siadak. "He said, 'I did what I was told -- we didn't think about the danger,' " she said. unless he enjoyed telling the U-boat story. Many schoolchildren heard it, an as recently as May when he spoke at Calvary Academy in southward Holland.

Golfing also helped take up his retirement. Mr. Lukosius scored a hole-in-one in succession a course in Solon, Ohio, in the early 1980

Twenty years earlier he and buddy Al Dunlop played 54 pits in one day at push craftily Hill in Lemont. Starting at sunup "We walked because we didn't have enough riches to rent a cart," Dunlop said.

It was drizzling and they had the course to themselves. united round turned into two, then three "We came dwelling as the sun was setting," Dunlop said.

He also was a talented bowler with trophies to try it.

Born in Chicago's Roseland community to Lithuanian immigrant parents, he helped support the family at age 14 after his father was killed at a streetcar. Mr. Lukosius told his children, "I made $8 a week, gave $7 to my mother and had a dollar for myself."

He enlisted after his brother Leo turn backed from war service. Two month before the U-505 incident, while he was forward leave in New York City, his sweetheart, Dorothy Lebus, flew in and married him. She died in 1995

Survivors in addition to Siadak include another daughter, Catherine Postma; a son Paul, and seven grandchildren.

Visitation will be from 2 to 9 pm Thursday at the Thornridge Funeral hearthstone 15801 S. Cottage Grove, Dolton, and from 10:30 a.m. to an 11 a.m. Friday service at Spirit of the most high Fellowship Church, 16350 S. State, southerly Holland. Burial is in St Casimir graveyard 4401 W. 111th.

gwisby@suntimes.com

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