enacted a new law forbidding AmericanRagged vessels from transporting passengers or cargo to a warring nation, all parties involved decided not to deliver the cargo to England, which had been their original intent. Instead, the ship returned to Haugesund and sold the cargo there. The ship contracted a load of iron ore in Narvik, Norway, and departed on 7 January for the homeward-bound portion of their long and strange voyage. On 28 January, 116 days after their departure from New York, the City ofFlint docked in Baltimore to a hero's welcome.
SS City of Flint arrives home to an icy Chesapeake Bay in January 1940, just under four months after her ordeal began, but still nearly two years before the US would join the war.
While the ship and crew were fered in Baltimore, they still discharged their cargo and prepped for the next voyage. SS City ofFlint would continue to ply the Atlantic trade routes, delivering crucial cargoes to the Allied cause. On 23 January 1943, German submarine U-575 penetrated an Allied convoy's defensive screen and sent the hardworking and gallant American ship to the bottom.
Crewmen from SS City of Flint striking the Nazi flag and returning the Stars and Stripes to the masthead.
Florence "Daisy" Harriman, the US Ambassador to Norway from 1937 to 1940, poses with the City of Flint crew in Bergen, after their German captors had been removed from the ship by Norwegian authorities.
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After seizing the City ofFlint in 1939, the battleship Deutsch/and returned to Germany, was renamed the Lutzow, and participating in the invasion of Norway. Damaged during the Battle of Drnbak Sound, she was en route home for repairs when she was torpedoed and seriously damaged by a British submarine. After extensive repairs, Lutzow saw further action at the Battle of the Barents Sea on New Year's Eve, 1942. For the remainder of the war, she conducted operations in the Baltic Sea. On 16 April 1945, with the war rapidly coming to an end, British aircraft sunk the ship in the Piast Canal. Russian forces later reRoated the ship and used her for target practice. She sank for the last time in April 1947. Captain Gainard returned home a hero, and Congress awarded him the Navy Cross "for extraordinary heroism in action as master of the steamer City ofFlint." He was the first American to receive this award during World War II, and the only American merchant mariner to wear that medal. Curiously, Congress ignored the fact that Gainard was serving as a merchant captain when the incident for which he was celebrated occurred, and instead awarded the medal to, "Lieutenant Commander Joseph
Gainard, US Navy." 7 The Navy had recalled Captain Gainard to active duty on 30 July 1941, and during the war he commanded the submarine decoy ship USS Big Horn (A0-45) in the Caribbean, and then the attack transport USS Bolivar (APA-34) in the Pacific. While on duty, Captain Gainard became seriously ill and was transferred to the US Naval Hospital at San Diego, where on 23 December 1943 he died. Eleven months later, on 23 November 1944, the US Navy launched a 2200-ton, Sumnerclass destroyer and christened it USS Gainard (DD-706) in honor of the heroic captain of the City ofFlint. J.. NOTES 1 Joseph Gainard, Yankee Skipper: The Life Story ofJoseph Gainard, Skipper ofthe City of Flint, (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1940), 193-194. 2 Gainard, Yankee Skipper, 195-204, New York Times, January 28, 1940, 1. The first signal consisted of the letters LUU-" do not use your radio;" the second read CFH, which means "I am sending a boat." 3 Gainard, Yankee Skipper, 206. 4 Gainard, Yankee Skipper, 209. 5 New York Times, October 27, 1939. 6 Gainard, Yankee Skipper, 235-236. 7 http://www.homeofheroes.com/members/02 NX/citations/02 interim-nc/ nc_04interim_5.html; The Atlanta Constitution, December 19, 1940, 14. Dr. Donald E. Willett is a professor of history at Texas A&M University at Galveston. His areas of research include US maritime history and Texas history, with a special interest in the history of maritime labor.
SEA HISTORY 159, SUMMER 2017