300.115(39) City of Flint/182: Telegram
The Minister in Norway (Harriman) to the Secretary of State
[Received 11:18 a.m.]
10. Reference is made to Bergen’s No. 7, November 6, 1 p.m.97 Following supplementary statement obtained from Captain Gainard concerning stay in Murmansk.
“At 5:30 a.m. Russian time on October 24, the Russian naval port officer came on board and courteously informed me as follows: ‘He also says, your ship is free to go as soon as the papers are made ready. We will be back later and you can get in touch with your Embassy. [Page 1013] How soon can you leave port?’ I replied, ‘I can leave at once with two boilers and cut the third in at sea’. In the meanwhile the German prize crew had been interned in the naval station.
On October 25 at 7:10 p.m., the customs officials came on board ship to check the manifest and I gave them a telegram addressed to the American Embassy at Moscow to which I never received a reply. On the same day the Russian neutrality patrol boat anchored under our stern. I sent a signal asking if they could send a boat to take all ashore. Their answer was ‘We cannot send boat and you must not use your boat’.
On October 26 from 2:15 p.m., until 6 p.m., Russian customs inspectors and workmen examined cargo in all five hatches. The hatches were opened and closed by ship’s crew. Still no communication with the Embassy in Moscow.
On October 27 at 4 a.m., the Russian authorities came on board bringing the German prize crew and stated that the City of Flint was again a German prize. The attitude now of the Russians, with the exception of the naval officer, was discourteous and I was told to sail at 5 a.m. I replied that this was impossible as two boilers were cut out. To this the naval officer replied ‘but you told me on arrival that you could sail at once’. I explained that I had said on the day I arrived that I could sail with two boilers at once, but that I had been given to understand that City of Flint was a free neutral ship in a neutral port and I therefore did what all masters do after a long sea voyage with another in prospect, namely, clean boilers and make other necessary repairs. All during this day the Russian officials and German prize officers visited us frequently, and we finally sailed at 5:55 in the afternoon October 28, having spent 4 days 23 hours 10 minutes in Murmansk. During this time no communication was permitted between the Embassy at Moscow and myself although I requested to be permitted to communicate with the Embassy every time a Russian official came to the ship. It was evident that my position with the Russians became worse daily while that of the Germans improved.
There were at anchor and interned at Murmansk prior to and during my stay several German merchant vessels: the liners Bremen, New York, St. Louis and Hamburg; the oil tankers William Reid, Ermanable and Hart and a freighter the name of which I did not see. The officers and men of these German interned ships were allowed access to the shore by their own boats while we as a free neutral ship in a neutral harbor were denied permission to land in any way.”
- This telegram contained the affidavit by Captain Gainard concerning events in the voyage of the City of Flint from the time of its departure from New York, to its seizure by the Deutschland, and its eventual restoration to American control in the Norwegian harbor of Haugesund during the night of November 3–4, 1939, except for only incidental allusion to the time spent in the Soviet port of Murmansk. The portion of this affidavit by Captain Gainard which related to the stay at Murmansk reads as follows: “Nearing port the German naval flag was hoisted and we entered port to anchorage October 22 [23?], 1340. I tried continuously to get in touch with our Ambassador but did not succeed during our 6 days stay. On the fifth day at 3:45 I was told that the ship was again a German prize and we were to leave at once. All this time the condition of my crew was good but our impression of the Russians was very bad. They seemed inefficient and stupid and unfriendly to us all. As we had cut off two boilers to work on them preparatory to steam, when ordered, we could not leave at once. This made Russian naval officers suspicious of me. We took 150 tons fresh water and keeping inside 3-mile limit we proceeded down Norwegian coast to Tromso.” (300.115 (39) City of Flint/158)↩