three-ship fo rmation m ade up the firs t American convoy since the G reat War. W ith the survivors safely ashore in H alifax, the City of Flint departed Canadian waters and headed home. For mos t merchant seamen, theAthenia resc ue op eration provided enough memories, real or imagined, to flesh-out the best of sea stories. Little did the officers and crew know that their next voyage would be one of the greatest non-war war stories of World War II. As they got underway to res ume their original route, everything proceeded normally. O ve r the n ex t few weeks, the ship conducted the coastwise portion of its voyage, making stops in New Yo rk, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Norfolk, discharging imported cargo and taking on new. Individual crewmembers signed off at predesignated ports and ti mes according to their contrac ts, and new crew signed on. At their las t American port before heading back out across the Atlantic, Captain Gain ard visited the U nited Stares C ustom House in New York C ity to register hi s cargo manifes t and present the relevant ship's p ap ers. Us ually a fo rmality, this visit took longer than it had in the pas t. W ith the rest of the world now at wa ragain-and the United States proclaiming neutrality, government offi cials examined the cargo m ani fes t with a fin e-toothed comb to make sure the freighter contained no contraband item s. C onfiden t that th is was the case, the C ustoms H ouse offici al cleared the City of Flint to proceed on its voyage to M anchester, England. On his way back to th e ship, Capta in Gainard stopped at the US H ydrographic Office, as was his ro utine, to get the latest weather forecas ts for his intended ro ute. There, he was also given specialty charts marking all of the German and English minefields in and aro und Great Bri tain and the entrance to the North Sea-just as a precaution.1 The City ofFlint departed New York H arbor on 3 October, bound fo r Manchester. The fi rs t six days of the passage passed uneventfully, but shor tly afrer noon on 9 October everything changed for the worse. The cadet officer, who was standing a lookout wa tch on the bridge, spied wh at he reported as an unusually shaped cloud moving across the hori zon, more rap idly than other clouds in the region. He asked the
SEA HISTORY 159, SUMMER 201 7
mate and the captain, who were also on the bridge, to help identi fy it. At about this ti me, the engine wa tch either "blew the tubes" or changed the burners in the fire box, and a large amount of soot spewed out the smoke stack and into the sky. All of a sudden, the oddly sh aped cloud turned toward the merchant ship on an intercept course. It was no cloud; it was a large warship. Captain Ga inard at first bel ieved, and hoped, that it was a French ship, but it did not take long to acknowledge that this was larger and fas ter th an anyt hing in the French Navy. Soon, the wa rshi p-the German pocket battleship D eutsch/and-was bea ring down on the Americans with all its armaments trained on the City ofFlint. Later, Gain ard wo uld lea rn that when the German lookouts spied the billowing black smoke, they reported a possible small con-
voy of enemy ships to their bridge officers. Well in view, the D eutsch/and hoisted two signal flags to the yardarms: one set of fl ags ordered the City ofFlint not to use its radio; the other conveyed that the A m ericans sh ould prepare to be boarded. Captain Gainard knew well that his freighter could not outrun or evade the bat tleship, so he decided to comply. To his relief, once the ship reduced its speed, the German bat tleship cradled its weapons and launched a small boat with a boarding party. 2 W hen the boarding party reached the City of Flint, its leader, Lieutenant H ans Pushbach, climbed aboard and made his way to the bridge, where he inspected the shi p's ca rgo manifest . It included general cargo (apples, as phalt, wax, m achinery, lumber, tractors, foo dstuffs, to bacco, and other typical trade good s) a nd 2 0,000 drums oflubr icating oil, the latter of which concerned the German lieutenant. "This is bad," he said in English. "U nder the laws of my country, you are guilty of carrying contraband to the enemy." Captain Ga inard reminded the German officer: "This is a U nited States ship and this cargo is not contraband under the laws of the United States."3 The d iscovery of a fo rbidden cargo lefr the captain of the D eutsch/and three option s. H e could sink the ship, but this hostile action could force the United States to d ro p its neutrality and enter the war on England 's side. O r he could let the ship go; such a gracious act might encourage Germany's enemies to use more neutral ships to transport contraband items to the Allies. Or he could put a prize crew aboard the City ofFlint and sail her to Germany. H e chose the third option. If he could get the
A member of SS C ity of Flint's crew snapped this photo of the D eutschland, holding station after the German warship stopp ed the American freighter at sea.
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