beginning of world war II

Members of City of Flint’s crew pose with the Nazi banner that flew over the ship while she was under German control. Photo credit: “Yankee Skipper: The Life Story of Joseph Gainard, Captain of the City of Flint.”

War History City of Flint Odyssey, Part 7

by Thomas Sanger • Thomas C. Sanger, War History • Leave a Comment

Within hours of leaving Russia in late October 1939, the American freighter City of Flint again entered Norwegian waters heading south toward Germany and a blockade of British warships. The ship continued to be operated by her American captain, Joseph Gainard, and his crew, but it remained under the control of the German prize crew and its commander, Leutnant Hans Pushbach. (See blog post City of Flint Odyssey, Part 6, Dec. 1, 2015.)

With an escort of two Norwegian warships, City of Flint stayed within Norway’s territorial waters to avoid capture by Royal Navy ships waiting just beyond the three-mile limit.

The closer City of Flint sailed toward the southern limit of Norwegian waters, the more Capt. Gainard’s hopes of getting free of the Germans diminished. When a crewman accidentally injured his shins, Gainard sensed an opportunity. Though the sailor’s injury wasn’t serious, Gainard asked Pushbach to signal for a doctor from one of the Norwegian warships, and the German obliged.

When the doctor came aboard, he was accompanied by a line officer from the Norwegian escort. While the doctor bandaged the sailor’s shins, Gainard took the officer around the Flint, making sure he noted how many Germans were aboard and the location of their quarters. He explained to Pushbach that he wanted the officer to be able to describe the ship’s condition should such a report become necessary if the ship was damaged or lost.

Flint’s radio remained out of order, so the German officer could not directly contact his superiors and receive orders on how to proceed and avoid the British ships waiting in the open sea south Norway. As City of Flint approached the southern Norwegian port of Haugesund, a German cargo ship sailing north came close enough for someone on the bridge to shout across in German that Pushbach should anchor in the port and see the German consul there.

Pushbach was in a difficult position. To anchor he needed some sort of emergency on board Flint or risk violating neutrality laws. He asked Gainard if the ship could have engine trouble, but Gainard refused to go along with such a ruse. In his memoir, he described what happened next:

“I suggested that Russia, a large neutral country, favored the German nation. ‘Surely Norway, a small neutral nation, would not care to antagonize your country… You have been ordered to anchor, by all means anchor.’

“He said, ‘I will anchor.’

“I replied, ‘Do you order me to come to anchor?’

“’Yes, we must anchor.’”

City of Flint thus sailed into Haugesund harbor and anchored on the orders of Leutnant Pushbach.

Early the following morning, Nov. 4, while most of the German prize crew slept, the Norwegian Navy sent across an armed boarding party, which took over City of Flint without firing a shot. The Germans were informed they had lost their rights by anchoring without legal cause and they were taken into custody. City of Flint was returned to her crew.

“The crew was hilarious,” Gainard wrote. “At the moment they could be hostile to the Germans, they very graciously helped them over the side and said goodbye to them as if they were old friends…”

City of Flint’s nearly month-long ordeal was over, but not her odyssey. Her journey concludes in our next blog.

Tromso, Norway, today is a city of 75,000 people, six times larger than when City of Flint arrived in 1939. Photo credit: fjordtravel.no

War History City of Flint Odyssey, Part 5

by Thomas Sanger • Thomas C. Sanger, War History • Leave a Comment

A little more than a month after bringing 236 Athenia survivors into Halifax, Nova Scotia, the American freighter, City of Flint, once again became front-page news when she was captured by the German Navy, Oct. 9, 1939 (see blog post City of Flint Odyssey, Part 4, Nov. 1, 2015).

City of Flint had been bound for Great Britain when she was intercepted by a German battleship. After inspecting the American ship’s cargo and declaring it contraband, the Germans put an armed prize crew aboard and directed City of Flint’s captain, Joseph Gainard, to head for Germany. To avoid potential hostilities with Royal Navy warships, Gainard and the officer in charge of the prize crew, Leutnant Hans Pushbach, charted a northeasterly course that would take them close to Norway.

With the ship’s radio out of order, Gainard could not report what had happened and Pushbach couldn’t contact his superiors for instructions. Using a shortwave radio, however, they were able to listen to news bulletins, which reported that the ship had been captured but its whereabouts was unknown.

As City of Flint headed toward Norway, Gainard set up a ruse with his chief engineer to make the Germans think the ship was running short of water. If the Germans asked to anchor in a neutral port (Norway was a neutral country at the time) to take on water and it was discovered the water wasn’t needed, they would be in violation of neutrality laws and the prize crew would be removed.

The ruse worked and on the evening of Oct. 21, Pushbach ordered Gainard to anchor at Tromso, Norway, to take on water. To Gainard’s dismay, the Norwegians simply filled the ship’s water tanks without ever checking her existing supplies. When he asked to get in touch with the American consul, the Norwegian authorities explained there was no consul in Tromso.

During their brief stay in port, however, they learned from the shortwave news reports that their arrival had been flashed to the world. Less than 24 hours after taking on the water, City of Flint departed Tromso, escorted out of Norwegian waters by a destroyer.

“Pushbach was on the spot,” Gainard later recalled in his memoir. “He had no direct orders from his government, our radio failure prevented that. I was just as worried as he was. We both wanted to keep the Flint safe, to keep her out of further trouble. He wanted to get her to Germany as he had been ordered…[and] I wanted to get her free.
“There were plenty of British ships on patrol to the south and probably at least a few German submarines, and I was unwilling to risk being in the middle of a major naval engagement …. If we got between the two in their smash, it was possible the City of Flint might cease to exist…”

With Pushbach in agreement, Gainard pointed City of Flint north to continue her odyssey.
More in our next blog.

The German pocket battleship Deutschland captured City of Flint a month after the freighter rescued Athenia survivors. Photo credit: Wikipedia.

War History City of Flint Odyssey, Part 4

by Thomas Sanger • Thomas C. Sanger, War History • Leave a Comment

Captain Joseph A. Gainard, master of the American freighter, City of Flint, expected the notoriety he and his ship gained after rescuing survivors of the Athenia tragedy would quickly fade when he sailed Oct. 3, 1939, with a cargo bound for Liverpool, England. (See blog post City of Flint Odyssey, Part 3, Oct. 15, 2015.)

Gainard’s welcome return to obscurity lasted only until Oct. 9 when the German pocket battleship Deutschland appeared from over the horizon and ordered City of Flint to stop and be boarded. Gainard wasn’t worried. The United States and Germany weren’t at war and he considered his ship’s cargo to be quite innocent. In his memoir, Gainard described his initial meeting with the officer in charge of the German boarding party:

“I saluted, then held out my hand. ‘Glad to have you aboard,’ I said.

“He was pleased with our formality and politeness and did his best to match it himself. He said, ‘Captain, I am sorry to cause you inconvenience, but this is war. I must ask to see your papers.’

“…We had apples, asphalt, wax, machinery, lumber, tractors, canned goods, cereals, tobacco, lard, flour, oil, grease and general cargo. ‘This is bad,’ the German said. ‘You have 20,000 drums of oil on board. What kind of oil is it?’

“‘Lubricating oil,’ I told him

“‘That is bad,’ he said. ‘And this flour, what is it?’

“‘White-bread flour.’

“‘Is it easily accessible?’ he asked. I told him that it would take at least five hours to unload the flour and showed him the cargo plan to prove it.

“‘Under the laws of my country, you are guilty of carrying contraband to the enemy,’ he told me.”

To Gainard’s dismay, the Deutschland sent across an armed prize crew and ordered City of Flint to sail to Germany. Though he and his crew would operate the ship, they would do so under the close supervision of the prize crew commanded by Leutnant Hans Pushbach, a veteran of the Imperial German Navy who spoke excellent English.

The Yankee skipper was in an awkward position. The German crew proved to be reasonable and polite, but they were armed with pistols, machine guns, and grenades, and made it clear they would not hesitate to use their weapons to maintain control of the ship. Like the rest of his men, Gainard resented being under German control. But he had to keep his crew from taking any action that might cause an incident serious enough to jeopardize America’s neutrality. International prize rules at the time gave the Germans authority to commandeer the American ship’s cargo.

Nevertheless, the crew constantly schemed to find a way to rid their ship of the Germans. Flaws inevitably appeared as these plans were being worked out and they would be abandoned. Once or twice, however, the plans seemed almost plausible. But as Gainard observed in his memoir, the Germans inevitably sniffed them out:

“They fraternized with my crew and a couple of [the Germans] knew English but never let on about it. They would stand around watching card games in the crew’s quarters and listen to everything that was said. Then they’d go and report to their Captain.

“Every few days [Pushbach] would come up to me and say: ‘Well, tonight I think we have monkey business.’

“So I would then go the rounds and talk to the crew, and tell them there wasn’t a chance of their scheme getting across, that the Germans were already wise to them.”

A problem with City of Flint’s radio could not be fixed by the German technicians, who refused any help from Gainard’s crew. As a result, the ship could not communicate with the rest of the world. The best they could do was listen to news broadcasts over the short-wave radio to find out what the world knew about their situation. Unable to talk to his superiors, or to determine the extent of British fleet operations, Leutnant Pushbach decided City of Flint should make for Norway, a neutral country, where he might be able to gain information through German diplomatic channels.

It was a risky move for the German, and it would prove to be Pushbach’s undoing, but not before City of Flint’s odyssey would take it all the way to the Soviet Union, as we will see in our next blog.

American freighter City of Flint Photo credit: www.snipview.com

War History City of Flint Odyssey, Part 1

by Thomas Sanger • SS Athenia, War History • Leave a Comment

With the threat of war hanging over Europe at the end of August 1939, passenger space on ships leaving England for North America was in great demand. For one ship in particular, the U.S. freighter City of Flint, that demand would unexpectedly swell its passenger manifest from zero to more than 250 in a most unexpected fashion.

When City of Flint’s captain, a crusty New Englander named Joseph Gainard, brought his ship into Glasgow, Scotland, on Aug. 31, he was told by the ship’s agents ashore that the U.S. Maritime Commission in London wanted to talk to him. Unable to get through to the commission, Gainard phoned the U.S. Ambassador, Joseph P. Kennedy, who had once helped him resolve a difficult situation with a crew on another ship when Kennedy was chairman of the Maritime Commission. Read More

During the war, David Jennings (second from right at table) served in the Canadian Royal Navy. Here he enjoys liberty with fellow officers in Honolulu, Hawaii, four days before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Photo credit: Jennings family photo.

Meet the Character David Jennings: Adventures of A Young Man, Part 4

by Thomas Sanger • Meet the Character, SS Athenia, Thomas C. Sanger • Leave a Comment

The survivors of the German submarine attack on the British passenger ship Athenia returned to the British Isles, Canada, and the United States to heroes’ welcomes in the waning days of summer 1939. But the headlines quickly faded, superseded by news of German conquests on the Continent, the British Army’s retreat from Dunkirk, and the London blitz.

Athenia survivor David Jennings returned home to begin his senior year at the University of Toronto, albeit a few days later than planned. (See blog post: Adventures of A Young Man, Part 3, Aug. 16, 2015.) While Canadians answered the call of their government to serve as soldiers, sailors and airmen, Jennings completed his engineering degree and in the summer of 1940 and went to work at a local de Havilland Aircraft Company plant. Read More

Survivors (from left) John Woods, David Jennings and Tony Cassels return home Sept. 23, 1939 to Toronto after being rescued from the torpedoed passenger ship Athenia. Photo credit: The Evening Telegram, Toronto, Canada.

Meet the Character David Jennings: Adventures of A Young Man, Part 3

by Thomas Sanger • Meet the Character, SS Athenia, Thomas C. Sanger, War History • Leave a Comment

The Norwegian freighter Knute Nelson was the first ship to respond to distress signals from the British passenger liner Athenia after she was torpedoed in the North Atlantic on the first day of World War 2. David Jennings, a University of Toronto senior, and his friend and fellow student, Tony Cassels, watched from one of the 26 lifeboats arrayed around the sinking ship as the freighter approached shortly after midnight, came to a stop and began rescue operations.

Working at their oars for nearly two hours, Jennings and Cassels helped bring their boat alongside the big Norwegian ship. As he waited to climb aboard the Nelson, Jennings heard a shout from the deck above and was surprised to see his friend and fellow student John Woods, who had been separated from Jennings and Cassels a few hours earlier. Read More

David Jennings enjoys his pipe in an undated photo taken after WW2. Photo credit: Family photo

Meet the Character David Jennings: Adventures of A Young Man, Part 2

by Thomas Sanger • Meet the Character, SS Athenia, Thomas C. Sanger • Leave a Comment

The longest continuous military conflict of World War 2 – The Battle of the Atlantic –began at 7:39 p.m., Sunday, Sept. 3, 1939, when a German torpedo loaded with 600 pounds of high explosives slammed into the port side of the British passenger ship Athenia.

At that precise moment onboard Athenia, David Jennings was preparing to leave his Third class cabin near the ship’s bow to attend the third seating for dinner. A University of Toronto student returning home for his senior year, Jennings was accompanied by two university friends, Tony Cassels and John Woods, with whom he had vacationed in the British Isles the previous month. (See blog post July 16, 2015: “David Jennings: Adventures of A Young Man.”) Read More

David Jennings, University of Toronto, 1940. Photo credit: Jennings family photo.

Meet the Character David Jennings: Adventures of A Young Man

by Thomas Sanger • Meet the Character, Without Warning Book • Leave a Comment

The late summer of 1939 had been a very enjoyable time for David Jennings. A senior at Canada’s University of Toronto, he had spent August traveling with two friends up and down the British Isles, visiting relatives, seeing the sights and sampling some of Britain’s finer eating establishments. Though conscious of the threat of war on the Continent, Jennings had no idea he was enjoying the last few idyllic days the world would know for the next six years.

Davidson Cumming Jennings was the youngest of four brothers born to a prominent Toronto family. His father, John, was a very successful lawyer for Guinness Brewing Co. in Canada. Young Jennings grew up in what might be termed “well-to-do” circumstances. Every evening in the family’s large home, the butler laid out dinner clothes for David and his three older brothers, who were expected to dress for dinner. David was a serious young man and a dedicated student (studying engineering at the university), who also possessed a very dry sense of humor. He enjoyed socializing and loved to sing a variety of Irish songs at parties and family gatherings. Read More

Rhoda Thomas with her brother Albert Fisher in Street, England. Rhoda’s visit in the summer of 1939 was cut short by the start of World War 2. Photo credit: Family photo

Meet the Character Rhoda Thomas: Resourceful Grandmother, Part 1

by Thomas Sanger • Meet the Character, SS Athenia, War History • Leave a Comment

The threat of war was not a major consideration for my grandmother, Rhoda Thomas, when she visited relatives and friends in her native England during the summer of 1939. Although German Chancellor Adolf Hitler was making territorial demands on Poland, few people thought the situation would lead to war.

Born in 1885, Rhoda had grown up in the little town of Street near Glastonbury in southwest England. She had met and married her husband, Frank Thomas, in Street and the couple had a son and a daughter before immigrating to the United States in 1914. Two more children were born in the U.S., where Rhoda and Frank became naturalized citizens in 1922. In the years that followed, Rhoda devoted herself to her husband, children, and grandchildren, and even in the most difficult days of the Great Depression she never lost her sense of humor or her trust in God,.

After her youngest daughter married in 1939, Rhoda left at the end of July for a two-month visit to Street. If she felt any hesitation boarding the ship in New York Harbor, it was because Frank, who worked for the State of New York Employment Office, could not accompany her. Read More

Liverpool’s Mersey River

Meet the Character: Barbara Cass-Beggs An Accomplished Life, Part 1

by Thomas Sanger • Meet the Character, Thomas C. Sanger, War History • Leave a Comment

Barbara Cass-Beggs expected to spend a year in Canada with her husband, David, and their 3-year-old daughter, Rosemary, when they boarded Athenia in Liverpool on the afternoon of Sept. 2, 1939. David had accepted a position for the coming academic year to lecture on electrical engineering at the University of Toronto, and Barbara saw it as an opportunity to test the waters of Canada’s egalitarian society. They planned to return home to Oxford, England, when the year ended, but World War 2 would change all that.

The threat of war seemed a long way off when Barbara and David initially planned to go to Canada. As tensions on the Continent mounted in the summer of 1939, they had second thoughts, but resolved to go anyway, in part to escape the rigid class distinctions of Great Britain.
Read More