seized ship home to Germany, his country would own another merchant ship, plus its cargo that might help the war effort. Additionally, the American crew could become a valuable bargaining chip in talks with Franklin Roosevelt and his governm ent. If the British Navy were to intercept the ship at sea, it would be faced with either sinking the ship and thus endangering the American crew, o r recapturing the vessel and returning it to its owner. With the first option, there would surely be hell to pay from the Americans; with a successful completion of the second, American neutrality would remain as strong as the White C liffs of Dover. A German prize crew soon boarded the City of Flint, bringing w ith it thirtyeight survivo rs of the British freighter Stonegate, which the U-boat had sunk several d ays earlier. The Germ a n commander gathered the A merican crewmen and, in reasonably good English, informed them that, "You are now bou nd for Ge rma ny. My soldiers will be a military guard. You will get all yo ur orders from your captain. If there is any interference or refusal, I will kill yo u."4 With these words, the crewmen
of the City ofFlint became the first Americans in World War II to face a death threat in a combat zo ne, and they were the first US prisoners of war in this new conflict. The Ge rman com ma nder ordered the City ofFlint to head away from the No rth Sea and steer northeasterly toward Norway to avoid British air and sea patrols fo r a safe arrival in Germany. To improve their odds of success, the prize crew painted over the American stars and stripes on the hull and repai nted the stack. The Germans then painted the colors of the Danish fl ag on the ship's topsides, and hastily stitched together a Danish flag and set it over the stern. For their final act of chica nery, the Germans painted over all other A merica n m a rkings and renamed the ship the Alf It worked-at least for a while. The sh ip encountered no British patrols, but the City ofFlint's engineers hatched a plan to force the Nazi crew to rethink their plan by informing them that the ship's freshwater supply was d angero usly low. Of course, this was not true, but this news left the Germans with no choice but to change course. Even if water were rationed to the personnel onboard, the ship's three boilers
required a fixed amo unt of the precio us liquid . It was simple engineering-no water, no steam . No steam, no propulsio n . No propulsion, either a British prisoner-ofwar camp or a one-way trip to Davy Jones's locker awaited them. Gainard hoped that the Germans would head for a neutral Norwegia n port, clai m that their water supply was critically low, and ask to load more potable water. Under international law, this was a legitimate request for a combatant to m ake port in a neutral nation. If the warring vessel entered a neutral port under fa lse pretenses, however, Norway could impound the vessel and crew and arrest the prize crew. After fine-tuning thei r dead-reckoning projections and slinging the lead line a few times, Captain Gainard and his German counterpart determined that they were near the Norwegian port city of Troms0, and called for a pilot. Eleven days afrer its capture, the City ofFlint anchored in Troms0 and her crew hoped for the best. Strangely, Norwegian officials did not sound the supposedly empty water tanks. Instead, they ordered the Germa ns to lower their Bag, paint over all fa lse m a rkings, a nd replace
THE FLEET IS IN. da s before
f ketsi s l4 y d penalties . Conditions on th e cruise . cellotions. apply to can
l as
t day to order ic
S3 flnduson ... Facebook
Project liberty Ship is a Baltimore based, oll volunteer, nonprofit ~dll.. organization
ll!!r/
12
Sit in the wardroom of a mighty battleship, touch a powerful torpedo on a submarine, or walk the deck of an aircraft carrier and stand where naval aviators have flown off into history. It's all waiting for you when you visit one of the 175 ships of the Historic Naval Ships Association fleet.
For information on all our ships and museums, see the HNSA website or www.HNSA.org visit us on Facebook.
SEA HISTORY 159, SUMMER2017