Blue Eyes

 

My mothers early years - written by my brother Peter Douglas

We were in my Father’s Day cabin.  He wanted me to meet the officers prior to the ship sailing across the Atlantic.  Mother had died 3 years before and I had already travelled on a couple of voyages with my shipmaster father.  This promised to be as exciting as the others. No doubt Dad hoped that somewhere I would find someone who was prepared to put up with what he called my feisty nature and marry me before my 30th birthday.  There wasn’t long to go.  Maybe there would be someone in Savannah our first stop, someone like Rhett Butler the hero in the new book I was reading.

 

The Chief Engineer was like so many other engineers I had met, a dour Scotsman, the First Mate a Geordie, and the Wireless Operator from Hull.  The second mate was on watch, but my father called the Third Mate up from supervising the last of the cargo loading.  

Mum is in the middle and Dad sitting to the right

He was a slim young man of medium height but tall to me.  He had dark wavy hair and a pair of the bluest of blue twinkly eyes.  Eyes that I had seen before, but where?  He was called George, and he was born in Whitby, a local lad then as far as I was concerned.  And then I knew where and when I had seen those eyes many years before.

 

 

My grandfather William had been a shipmaster.  He had retired just as the Armistice was declared 6 years before.  I was living with him and my grandmother at the time as Mother was away visiting my father, whose ship was docked in Amsterdam.  Granddad did his rent collecting alone, till he hurt his hand, and this Saturday I had gone with him.  I felt very important.  I had finished grammar school a few weeks ago, and hoped I could make a career in music.  My job today though was to record the money Grandad received into the rent books.  Grandmama had made sure I was smartly dressed, not like my preferred tomboyish style.  I had on a navy-blue skirt and a white blouse; my long brown hair was plaited neatly and each plait was tied with a white ribbon.  My polished black shoes had a neat strap across white ankle socks.

 Leaving the house I struggled to keep up with my grandad’s tall rangy stride as we climbed the bank towards the station. We caught the 10:30 train and arrived in Whitby after half an hour.  I never tired of the ride along the cliff edge, watching the sea breaking against the rocks below.  Today though the sea was calm below a clear blue sky.  Soon the train crossed over the viaduct high above the river Esk before reversing and dropped down into the valley and Whitby Town station.  As I stepped down onto the platform, I noticed a speck of soot on my white blouse.  Without thinking I brushed it off leaving a dark smear across the cotton.  Somehow, I seemed to attract dirt.

 ‘Never mind,’ chuckled my grandfather, ‘I’ve got some on my sling, so we are a right pair.’  He gestured to the triangular cotton bandage supporting his right arm.  ‘Let’s be off and get the job done, then we’ll see what treat we can find for ourselves.’

 There were only four houses to visit, but they were well scattered. We visited both sides of the river, never going very far before my Granddad stopped to chat with someone he knew.  When he was at sea a lot of the ships had been built in Whitby and owned by local people who would band together to buy a 64^th share.  They knew and appreciated him as someone who had kept their investment afloat. 

 It was almost 12:00 before we had visited the last house and I had made the last, almost neat, entry into the rent books.  Returning across the bridge Granddad said that he always met the Chief Pilot and shared a drink with him before returning home.  He would still do this, but before then he would buy me a soft drink and an iced bun.  I felt quite grown up as we sat in the smart café and a waitress in a black dress, white pinny and a white laced headband served us.  Grandad just had a cup of tea.  He chatted mostly about his greatest passion, his garden, which I loved to help him with.  His dad had been a farm labourer and he had learned the joy of growing things at an early age.

 After Grandad had settled the bill and received a big smile for the generous tip he left for the waitress, we walked to the harbour.  As ever the port was full of herring drifters, moored three and four deep against the harbour wall.  The smell of fish was everywhere, but one with which I was familiar.  We met the Chief Pilot outside his house along the quayside.  I was told to take a little walk along the pier and meet them back at the Pilot’s House in half an hour. 

 I watched the work of the fishermen for a while as they slung ashore the boxes of fish and tidied the nets.  Beyond the herring drifters a small rowing boat was being handled by a bunch of young boys.  They were jumping in and out of the boat, swimming around and splashing in the harbour.  It looked as though they were enjoying themselves.

 The sound of a band attracted me to the bandstand at the entrance to the West Pier.  I didn’t mind brass bands although I much preferred the piano and church organ.  One of the cornet players was funny, every time he blew really hard his cheeks bulged out like two rosy apples.  The band, dressed in black and gold uniforms, was quite good.  Their instruments twinkled in the sunlight as they played a few Gilbert & Sullivan tunes.  I lost track of the time and had to scurry back along the quayside.

 They were waiting for me near the pilot’s house and as I joined them from one side a group of young boys walked along the quayside from behind them.  I think they were the group who had been splashing about in the harbour. As they drew level the Chief Pilot gestured to one of the boys.

 ‘Come here, boy, I want you to meet Captain Emmerson.’

 Turning to Grandad he said, ‘This is one of my grandsons, he says he wants to go to sea when he is old enough’.

 Grandad shook his rather grubby hand and told him to work hard at his schooling and he may be lucky enough to see all the wonders of the world that he had seen.  He then introduced me, saying, ‘This young lady is my granddaughter Rachel’.

 He looked at me. His blue eyes twinkled under a shock of wavy hair and sat amidst a decidedly dirty face.

 ‘Hello Miss’, he offered his hand to shake.

 My face must have shown my disgust at the state of it, but I took it.  He grinned and then said, ‘You’ve got some soot on your blouse.’

 I think I must have blushed because he grinned even more, and my Granddad looked away.

 ‘Must be off for lunch, Grampa, good morning to you all’ the urchin said, and striding past me gave a little tug on one of my plaits.

 ‘I’ll get you for that someday,’ I vowed to myself.

 

 

Now here he was again, no longer an urchin, but a good-looking young man in his early twenties.  I realised that my desire, for revenge for that hair pull, had changed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gramps

 

Living with Grandpa

Grandpa had always been a part of the family. We lived in his big red brick house that was built in the 1920’s most probably from the proceeds of many successful voyages as Captain. As his wife died our young mother decided to look after him and it was therefore natural that we all lived together once he had retired.

Grandpa or Gramps as we called him was my mother’s father. Born in Lincolnshire in 1879, his father was a coastguard based in Sutton Bridge, he grew up around the sea. He went to sea in 1894 at the age of 15 and spent the whole of his life at sea working for a shipping company out of Whitby, Yorkshire and settling in the fishing village of Robin Hoods Bay. He retired as Captain and it as a pensioned seafarer that I knew him until I went to sea at the age of 16 in 1957.

Throughout his seafaring career he saw 2 World Wars with many adventures and incidents. For instance in the 1^st. World War he told me a tale of being bombed. He was on a small sailing ship leaving the Thames in ballast with the hatches open for cleaning. He heard a strange noise, a sort of buzzing in the sky. Looking up he saw a small aeroplane circling the ship and then finally diving down towards the ship. Then a small object fell from the plane and went straight down an open hatch to be followed by a loud explosion. The ship immediately started to take in water and it is not clear what the outcome was but he had a small newspaper clipping of the incident, now lost. However this was one of the first incidents of aerial bombing in that war.

Later in the 2^nd. World War he had his moment of glory when his ship was stopped and sunk in mid Atlantic by a German pocket battleship and he was captured to be released under caution some 2 weeks later. He spent the rest of that war in the Royal Navy Reserve.

In 1951 he moved with us to a new house in Middlesbrough for the remaining years he had.

He was a portly, some would say stout person, short in height and broad in the shoulders. A sort of roly-poly figure, his face was ruddy and dominated by a large red veined nose that was more than once the first body part to be injured in his various adventures.

He wore glasses that sometimes were held together with sticking plaster as they also suffered from either a hard contact with an object or from falling off his head.

His monk like hairstyle was most often topped off with a trilby hat on his outings whilst firmly clamped between his teeth was a pipe.

He was inseparable from his pipe. It was an essential part of who he was. Always at an angle in his mouth it was an essential accessory indoors, outdoors, everywhere.

Smoking his pipe involved many different actions before he was satisfied and clouds of smoke issued forth.

First the pipe must be cleaned. He knocked out the ashes and remaining tobacco into an ash tray and took out his clasp knife from the capacious trouser pockets he had to scrape the bowl clean of residue. Now and then he needed to ream out the pipe completely and for this he had a cylindrical file that fitted exactly the pipe bowl and after a few twisted the wooden pipe was renewed.

Then with a pipe cleaner, a wire wrapped in cotton, he would thread it through the mouthpiece to clear out the gunge that lay there in the channel to the bowl.

With a clean pipe he would turn his attention to the tobacco. He often blended different tobaccos to taste but his favourite was Walnut Flake that came in a hard rectangular block with, I remember, a diamond shaped yellow metal plate advertising the brand.

Out came the clasp knife again, this time to cut slivers of tobacco from the plug and set it into a leather pouch where often there was a slice of apple to “freshen it up” as he would say. Then he would roll the tobacco between his fingers until he had a satisfactory mix and texture tamping it down in the pipe. Ready for firing up, out came the Swan Vestas and soon streams of blue/white smoke surrounded Gramps.

As Captain at sea he got what he demanded and this followed him into civil life. No meek request or submission to others suggestions. No, he issued commands. “Dolly” as he called his daughter, my mother. “I am going out to meet some friends at the Bodega”. We all knew what that meant.

He maintained an extravagant lifestyle even as a pensioner wanting grouse and jugged hare from time to time. This was hard on the household budget as Dad had just returned to sea after an unsuccessful attempt to work ashore as a compass adjuster. So he and mother often had “discussions” on his extravagance.

Let’s be clear he was no saint, more of a pipe-smoking ancient mariner with a penchant for a drink or two that got him into trouble more than once.

It was not unusual for Grandpa to be delivered home by taxi and more than once it was not clear he was in the taxi until you opened the door and this body fell out! He was a heavy man and it took both mother and a neighbour using a blanket as a stretcher to get him in the house. Life was never dull with Grandpa!

Nevertheless he was kind and very supportive of mother bringing up 4 young children alone and helped me in my quest to be a seafarer.

I remember that sometimes my brother and I were allowed to accompany him on his Saturday trips to the local fishing port of Whitby to meet his cronies! I suspect it might also have been mother’s strategy to ensure her father got home safely.

The steam train stopped at the West Cliff station first at the top of the hill overlooking Whitby before reversing down the hill to Whitby town station. Out of the train with Gramps in the lead we walked down Baxtergate past the swing bridge over the harbour entrance to the inner harbour and onto the fish quay. There were a number of pubs at the back of the quay and Gramps had his favourite and made a beeline for it. “See you in two hours, he shouted as he left us. Not sure what mother would have thought of her father abandoning two young teenagers to their own devices whilst he went off drinking with his cronies.

What to do? Well it was not too hard to figure out what to do with this 2 hour of freedom. At the harbour entrance end of the fish quay was an amusement arcade as we called it. It was a large building open to the street out of which one could hear loud music.

Inside there was everything from slot machines to dodgem cars and many other ways to spend your time. I am not sure if Gramps gave us money to help us pass the time but I remember we had money!

Slot machine really did not interest us, more a waste of money, but dodgem cars, well that was another matter. Driven by overhead electrical poles somewhat like a tram they were small single seat cars that could be driven in an enclosure. With only a steering wheel and accelerator they were ideal for us. Usually there was a single direction around the circular enclosure dictated by the operator and the game was to drive safely around and around avoiding all other cars, hence the name dodgem. Well, of course that was not good enough for us, it was much more fun to chase and hit other cars, especially your brothers, even going in the wrong direction to do that. This was fun usually until the operator told us to “cut it out or you are finished”. What a spoil sport he was. Anyway after 15 minutes the session was over and 5 pence had been used. Another attraction for us was those where you paid a penny and could operate a small crane in an attempt to pick up small prizes and dump them down a chute where you could retrieve them. Not a very successful thing. Another was to operate a slide that pushed coins towards a chute so you got back some of the money you had used. The only winner seemed to be the amusement arcade. But it filled the time until we must meet up with Gramps outside the pub.

Always good in timekeeping he would meet us outside the pub with a heavily loaded suitcase and we would wend our way back to the train station. Of course, in those days it was a steam train with closed passenger compartments, no corridors. So who you started the journey with were also the people you finished the journey with.

So into the carriage, Grandpa breathing heavily. Once seated, out came the pipe, a clasp knife with a large plug of tobacco. Then he whittled off enough tobacco to fill his pipe, took out his matches and in no time at all the compartment was full of tobacco smoke.

One such journey we had 2 nuns in our carriage. We said hello and Grandpa proceeded to take out a ball of string from his jacket pocket. Then he took this brown suitcase down from the overhead racks, placed it on the seat and opened it to reveal a seething mass of seafood! Picking up a lobster he would tie each claw and then return it to the suitcase. Crabs also were dealt with in the same manner whilst he lifted the salmon and cod to show them off. By this time the 2 nuns were huddled the farthest corner from us next to the window. They kept exchanging glances towards Grandpa as he continued to produce as much smoke as the train engine, it seemed. They cracked open the window by releasing the leather strap that held it closed over the door in an attempt to get some fresh Yorkshire air.

Grandfather was completely oblivious of their predicament and once all the seafood had been examined and returned to the suitcase he shut the lid, knocked his pipe out through the open window and fell asleep snoring heavily for the rest of the journey. Once we arrived at Middlesbrough and the train jerked to a stop the nuns fled the train even before Grandpa had gathered all his belongings!

 

 

The “Stonegate” incident

[1]

A story of 3 ships and 3 captains in the Second World War

by John Douglas, Yorkshireman and ex seafarer.

Background

My father and grandfather were both seamen in the Merchant Navy at the outset of the Second World War yet neither of them talked much about their experiences. It was much later that my mother provided some insight to their exploits in this period.

It started with one document and two photographs: A bound copy of the London Illustrated News dated

Saturday November 11^th. 1939 (1), an original signed copy of the German pocket battleship “Deutschland” (2)and a photocopy of a newspaper cutting with the caption “Mannen med brillene er Captein Randall” (3)!

My mother handed them to me and then gave her version of events in October 1939 concerning my grandfather, Captain F.G.W. Randall, and my father Second Officer George Douglas, both on the cargo ship “Stonegate”.

The resulting story is based on my mother’s story and evidence found in newspapers and documents concerning the early period of the war.

 

The setting

War between Britain and Germany was declared 1^st. September 1939 and very quickly Germany started an offensive against British shipping in the Atlantic sinking almost 30 ships in the first month mostly by U-boats in the Western Approaches. Against this background three ships and their captains came to meet in the middle of the Atlantic.

The first ship was the “S.S. Stonegate”, a British tramp ship owned by Turnbull and Scott and Co., a North Yorkshire family shipping company from Whitby with a base in London. The ship was built in 1928 of 5044 grt with a 3 cylinder steam reciprocating engine capable of 10 knots.

Most of the officers were recruited from the North Yorkshire coastal area hence my grandfather from Robin Hoods Bay and my father from Whitby.

The ship departed Tocopilla near Antofagasta in Chile reportedly for Alexandria in Egypt with a cargo of nitrates. She left Tocopilla around the 13^th. September 1939 heading for Panama and the Atlantic.

 

The second ship was the German heavy cruiser/pocket battleship “Deutschland” sent to patrol the North

Atlantic and sink allied shipping. With a displacement of 12,630 tons her diesel engines gave a maximum speed of 28 knots.

On 24^th. August 1939, before the declaration of war by Britain, she set sail from Wilhelmshaven to establish a position south of Greenland to intercept Allied merchant shipping. Her orders were to strictly follow prize rules that required her to stop and search ships for contraband, evacuate the crews and then sink the ships.

 

The third ship was the American flag merchant ship “City of Flint” that at the beginning of the second world war was been operated by the United States Lines in support of the American Maritime Commission for the American Army. The ship was of 4963grt with steam turbine propulsion capable of 11.5 knots.

She left New York on the 3^rd. October 1939 bound for the UK with a mixed general cargo including food.

 

The voyages

The Stonegate left Tocopilla around the 13^th. September, some two weeks after the start of World War Two. With a speed of around 8 knots[2] she would transit the Panama Canal and would have cleared the Mona Passage and entered the North Atlantic around the 29^th.  September.

The “City of Flint” departed New York for Glasgow and Liverpool (4) on the 3^rd.  October.

The Deutschland left Wilhelmshaven in the Baltic Sea on the 24^th. August some 3 days after the departure of the Admiral Graf Spee. Their intention was to harry commercial ship traffic in the North and South Atlantic respectively. Both were accompanied by supply ships, the “Westerwald” for the Deutschland and the “Altmark” for the Admiral Graf Spee.  Both sailed north up the neutral coast of Norway and then west and south to their hunting grounds. The Deutschland went furthest to the west before turning south coming to the east coast of Greenland before turning south to start its search for ships. (5)

By the 30^th. September she was already midway between the Azores and Newfoundland (6).

So here is the chart constructed from reported dates and ship data.[3]

The routes and positions are based on best estimates and normal navigation practices. For instance it is usual to use the Mona Passage when entering the Atlantic northbound to Europe from the Caribbean.

Also the normal great circle routes normally followed by ships are drawn on the chart.

The destination of the Stonegate is unclear at this point being variously described as Alexandria in Egypt (1) or England. (7) Therefore both the routes to the Mediterranean and the English Channel are drawn.

So as both the City of Flint and the Stonegate prepared to transit the North Atlantic, the Deutschland was already positioned in a central position to intercept them.

The Battle of the Atlantic, as described by Winston Churchill, had already begun and many ships had been sunk by U-boats in the Western approaches to the UK and in the North Sea. However the use of heavy German warships had not yet started but with the Deutschland and her sister ship Graf Spee already in the Atlantic things were about to change.

At this early stage of the war two important features impacted the fates of the City of Flint and the Stonegate. Firstly, America was neutral and did not enter the war until after the attack on Pearl harbour over one year in the future so the City of Flint was a non-combatant in October 1939 even though she was intended for a destination in the UK.

Secondly, convoy systems had been established shortly after the war over the Atlantic[4] and the City of Flint may have intended to join up with an east bound Halifax convoy. However convoys did not extend to ships coming up from the Caribbean (8). As a result the British registered ship Stonegate was alone in her voyage to the UK.

 (9)

The Captains

Stonegate

Captain Fred George William Randall

Captain Fred George William Randall[5], my grandfather, known in the family as “Gramps”, was born in 1879 and started a life at sea aged 15 in 1894 as an apprentice in small ships registered in Whitby. He progressed through able seaman
and was granted a Masters Certificate in 1904 at the age of 25. By this time he had voyaged around the world especially to South America. By 1939 he was 60 years old with 45 years seagoing experience, an experienced seaman by any standards.

[6]  [7]

He married Rachel Anne Emmerson on 13^th. September 1905 in Robin Hoods Bay and they had two children, a boy called Fred and my mother Rachel Evelyn Randall.

My grandmother and her parents died in 1933-34 leaving Fred and Evelyn, as she was called, without support as grandfather was at sea.  Fred was sent to relatives and mother, now 26 years old, became housekeeper to grandfather and sailed with him on many voyages around the world. What a life for a young single girl in those days. Riding a camel in Egypt and picnicking in Argentina was just a couple of her life experiences.

My mother trained as a pianist and organist aiming for her LRAM (Licentiate of the Royal Academy of Music) grades but never really came to further her profession. Instead she played piano and organ at home and as an accompanist to amateur and professional singers. When she started to travel with her father, the piano also went on board. Unfortunately it was lost when the Stonegate sank.

She also met my father at sea and in this picture she has her father behind her and her future husband, the second mate, on the right side in the front row.

George Douglas, my father, was born into a fisherman’s family in Whitby in Yorkshire and turned to the sea as a profession. He joined my grandfather’s company Turnbull Scott and they sailed together on the Stonegate and he was the second mate on that voyage in October 1939 as the entry in his discharge book signifies.

It shows that he joined the ship on the 9^th. July 1939 in Sunderland and was discharged “at sea” 5^th. October 1939 because that was the date the ship sank. The discharge is signed by the Captain, my grandfather, and dated 2^nd. November 1939 in South Shields, immediately on their return to the UK. There are no previous records for my father because his discharge book was presumably lost on the ship with the piano!

An indication of the state of mind of my grandfather at the time can be drawn from the fact that he told his daughter to leave the ship in Amsterdam on the previous voyage as he was afraid that there was going to be a war. So she was at home alone whilst her father and boyfriend went back to sea on a voyage to Chile with a world war pending.

So when the Stonegate entered the North Atlantic heading north alone after the start of the Second World War what was going through his mind? His ship was fully loaded with nitrate, slow and unarmed. There was no convoy system and therefore no naval support and he would have no knowledge of the whereabouts of German warships. However he probably did know that when approaching the Western Approaches and nearing the UK he could expect U-boat attacks.

City of Flint

Captain Joseph Aloysius Gainard (10)

[8]Captain Joseph Aloysius Gainard was born on October 11^th. 1889 in Chelsea Massachusetts. In 1917 he enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserve Force, aged 28, as a quartermaster third class and was commissioned as Ensign in 1918. (11)

He saw active duty in the First World War and was aboard the USS President Lincoln when she was sunk with loss of life by a German submarine off the Scilly Islands. He spent 5 days in a life raft before been picked up. The rest of that war he spent in the UK including the transfer of troops to and from France. He was made Lieutenant in 1920 and honourably discharged from service in 1925.

He transferred to the merchant marine and whilst master of the SS Bakersfield in 1929 he was made Lieutenant Commander in the US Naval Reserve.

When the Second World War started he was again at sea and went to the rescue of the British passenger ship Athenia owned by the Anchor-Donaldson line (12). On a voyage from the UK to Montreal with 1103 passengers she was sunk on the 3^rd. September 1939 by a German U-boat west of Northern Ireland. A number of ships responded to the distress call from the Athenia including Captain Gainard, now master of the City of Flint. He picked up 236 survivors and took them to Halifax, Nova Scotia. The sinking of a passenger ship was illegal and as many of the passengers were from neutral countries it gained a lot of publicity.

By the time he left New York on his next voyage on the 3^rd. October heading back to the UK he was 50 years of age with 22 years seafaring experience. He had been involved in two world wars and experienced both a sinking and a rescue. He was a modest man; “I’m no hero. All I claim to be is just a sailor; right now an officer in the United States merchant marine, once just an officer in the United States Navy.” (13) He was a very experienced professional seaman.

Deutschland

Captain Paul Werner Wenneker

Captain Paul Werner Wenneker was born in 1890 in Kiel Germany into a naval family, and in 1909 at the age of 19 became a midshipman in the German Navy. He joined the cruiser Mainz in 1913 and saw action in the first naval action of the First World War in August 1914 in the Battle of the Heligoland Bight in which the Mainz was sunk and Ensign Wenneker was taken prisoner of war until 1918. In 1919 he returned to the German Navy and served in torpedo boats taking command in 1920. He had various positions both at sea and ashore until 1933 when he became Naval Attaché in the German Embassy in Tokyo, Japan. He was promoted to the rank of contra-admiral and in 1938 he left Japan to become captain of the pocket battleship Deutschland at the age of 49. (14) He was an experienced seaman and a diplomat.

The voyages until the 5^th. October

The Stonegate proceeded in a north easterly direction and on the 5^th. Of October was in position 31 10N 54 00W indicated by the yellow symbol below. This position helps us determine her destination as had she been heading for Alexandria and the Straits of Gibraltar by a great circle route she would have been much further south and east than her position indicates. In fact, the position on 5^th. October is on the great circle route from Mona Passage to the English Channel. Although we cannot discount the possibility that grandpa was taking some “avoiding action” by taking a more northerly route to the Mediterranean it is most likely he was following the normal route to the UK.

 (9)

On the same date the City of Flint was due south of Halifax, the rendezvous port, for eastbound convoys. However there is no indication that she intended to join a convoy and most likely as a neutral ship continued on a great circle route to the UK. The Deutschland zigzagged south and west until she found the Stonegate on the 5^th. October.

The sinking of the Stonegate (1)

The morning of 5^th. October 1939 at sea some 450 nautical miles ESE of Bermuda was cloudy with a heavy sea running. About 11:00 a look-out reported a warship approaching on the port bow. Captain Randall used his binoculars and quickly confirmed it was a German warship. Quite rapidly a series of flag signals from the warship commanded the Stonegate to heave to and not to use their radio. The Stonegate stopped and the warship rounded her stern and ordered grandpa to abandon ship. A lifeboat from each side was lowered with all the thirty eight members of the crew of the Stonegate on board. Even though there was a heavy sea running the lifeboats made good progress as they had the lever type propulsion system in lieu of oars.

Captain Randall was received with the traditional courtesy of the sea up the starboard side of the warship and on to the quarterdeck of the warship. Although he was wearing civilian clothes at the time he returned the salute of the Captain of the German warship. Then grandpa learnt that the ship was the pocket battleship Deutschland and its captain was contra-admiral Paul Wenneker.

When all the Stonegate’s crew were safely on board, the Deutschland approached the Stonegate on the port quarter at a distance of about one quarter mile and opened fire with her secondary guns. When this did not sink the ship the main armament was used and the Stonegate sank. The Deutschland then turned and headed north. Grandpa stated that he and his crew were treated most kindly whilst on the Deutschland and Captain Wenneker even presented him with a copy of the London Illustrated News of August 12^th.[9]

 

The interception of the “City of Flint”

After the Stonegate was sunk, the Deutschland headed in a northerly direction towards the southern point of Greenland. It may be she was heading to her supply ship that would have been in the supply area marked on the map (6) south and west of Greenland to offload her British prisoners of war exactly as the Graf Spee did with the Altmark in the South Atlantic. (15)  

However on the 9^th. October in latitude 45.09N longitude 43.22W, some 800 nautical miles north and east from the position of the sinking of the Stonegate the City of Flint was heading north and east towards the UK. It was cloudy and dull in the early evening with a moderate sea running when the lookout reported what seemed to be a fast moving cloud. This quickly was identified as a warship travelling at high speed that turned out to be a German warship, the Deutschland. (10) She came up with the American freighter City of Flint (9) and ordered her to stop using the same flag sequence as used with the Stonegate. It is worth (9)stating that the City of Flint was a neutral vessel displaying a large American flag on the side of the ship. So Captain Wenneker must have known he had stopped a neutral ship.

This act is in accordance with International Law that allows a warship from a country at war to stop and search ships of a neutral nationality to check that their cargo is not prohibited. (10) So a boarding party of 18 German officers and sailors checked the papers of the City of Flint. The result was that the German officer in charge of the boarding party declared that the City of Flint was carrying contraband to the enemy. The specific cargo identified as contraband was lubricating oils and flour. Thus the ship became a prize of war and a prize crew would take over the ship. At the same time the Deutschland signalled that 38 English prisoners of war would also be transferred to the City of Flint on route to a prisoner of war camp in Germany. Grandpa was given a signed, commemorative picture of the Deutschland by Captain Wenneker.

So the City of Flint now had a total complement of around 95 seamen, American, German and English. Whilst the German prize crew under Lieutenant Hans Pussbach were armed and in charge the American crew ran the ship and the English crew had free use of the ship although it was reported that the conditions were not as good as on the Deutschland. (1)

Her my mother’s version differs in that she told me that my father and grandfather were transferred to the SS Altmark which, in fact, was the supply ship for the sister ship to the Deutschland. At this time she was in the South Atlantic. However it is an easy slip of the memory as only four months later in February 1940 the “Altmark incident” in Jøssingfjord in Norway took place where the Royal Navy attacked the Altmark in neutral Norwegian waters and released many English prisoners of war captured by the Graf Spee in the South Atlantic.

Clear evidence that it was the City of Flint can be seen in this photograph of the crew of the City of Flint presumably given to my grandfather.

The  “City of Flint” under a prize crew

So the Deutschland and the City of Flint parted company. The Deutschland to continue raiding in the North Atlantic and the City of Flint intending to sail to Hamburg.

On the 14^th. October the Deutschland stopped and sunk by gunfire the Norwegian vessel SS Lorentz W. Hansen on route from New Brunswick to Liverpool with a cargo of timber. At the time Norway was neutral. The Norwegian crew were transferred to the Deutschland and then transferred to another Norwegian vessel, the Kongsdal, on route to Denmark, also neutral at the time. (16) The resulting political furore had implications later in the Stonegate incident. This is in contrast to what happened to the Stonegate crew after transfer to a neutral ship.

The City of Flint headed “a far northerly course” (1) whilst Norris (10) states that Lieutenant Pussbach and Captain Gainard took a north easterly course east of Iceland heading for the northern part of Norway. Clearly the avoidance of meeting British warships was an important consideration and the ship was blacked out to make the ship less visible.

However this course is in conflict with reports from Stonegate crew members in an interview with reporters on arrival in Tromsø. (17) They reported that between the 9^th. October and the 17^th. October they sailed north and the weather became colder and colder with ice and snow on deck and around the 15^th. October they sited 17 icebergs. An examination of ice charts for August 1939 shows that ice and icebergs only existed west of Iceland in the Denmark Strait and in towards the Greenland coast. (18) Also it should be remembered that the Deutschland used this route on its outward leg and subsequently on its return to Germany. Lieutenant Pussbach would have known this was a relatively safe route to use.

They arrived in Tromsø on the 20^th. October in the late afternoon some 11 days after leaving the transfer point in the North Atlantic. This is at least 1 days steaming extra to the direct route east of Iceland. Therefore it is safe to assume they took the northerly route. Before arrival in Tromsø on the 17^th. October the prize crew overpainted the American flag symbol on the hull and the flying bridge with a Danish flag and painted out the ships name and replaced it with the name “Alf”. The reason for this is not clear but on the 20^th. October on approaching Tromsø the ship again flew the German flag.

Arrival in Tromsø

At this point it is worth reflecting on the fate awaiting both the crew of the Stonegate and that of the City of Flint. With an intended destination of Hamburg the crew of the Stonegate would be transferred to a prisoner of war camp to wait out a war of unknown duration whilst for the American crew there was at least an uncertain future!

So why did the City of Flint divert into the neutral port of Tromsø?

International law embedded in The Hague convention (XIII) of 1907 relates to the rights and duties of neutral powers in naval war. (19) Two clauses in that convention is relevant here, clauses 21 and 22. (19)

Clause 21 states:

” A prize may only be brought into a neutral port on account of unseaworthiness,

Stress of weather, or want of fuel or provisions.” …..

Clause 22 states:

“A neutral Power may allow prizes to enter its ports and roadsteads,”……

Further:

“If the prize is not under convoy, the prize crew are left at liberty.”

Whilst specifically not enabling the release of the respective crews on the City of Flint it does provide an opportunity to delay the voyage of the ship and perhaps allow the Norwegian authorities to impound the ship.

The mechanism used to create this diversion was an apparent lack of fresh water. Here, again, there are two different versions on how this came to be.

My mother told me that her father and the other officers deliberately started to drain the fresh water through the fresh water taps they had access to. Norris (10) has a slightly different interpretation. Captain Gainard discussed with his Chief Engineer in the presence of the English speaking prize crew that they were running low on fresh water and would need to replenish it although, in fact, they were not low on water.

Whichever explanation the ruse worked and this initiated the entry into Tromsø port on the 20^th. October.

The Norwegian authorities complied with the letter of the Hague Convention, topping up the fresh water tanks, restricting any shore leave for anyone on the ship and ordering it to leave port within 24 hours.

However the crew of the Stonegate were released and the circumstances surrounding this are not entirely clear. My mother stated that on boarding the ship the Norwegian authorities asked if there were prisoners of war on board and the prize crew denied they had any such persons on the ship. Subsequently, according to my mother’s version, the second officer, my father, waved a UK merchant navy ensign from a porthole and it was seen by the Norwegian who returned and released the Stonegate crew. Norris (10) has a different explanation.

Article 6 of the regulations regarding the crews of enemy merchant ships captured by a belligerent (20) states:

“The captain, officers, and members of the crew, when nationals of the enemy State, are not

made prisoners of war, on condition that they make a formal promise in writing, not to

undertake, while hostilities last, any service connected with the operations of the war.”

Norris (10) records that Lieutenant Pussbach made this offer to the Officers and crew of the Stonegate which they accepted. Reducing the number of persons on the City of Flint may have been a relief to the German prize crew and certainly was an offer not to be refused by the Stonegate crew. Therefore they were taken ashore by the Norwegian authorities.

My mother had a comment that subsequently the third officer joined another ship after repatriation, was caught again by the Germans and shot. Both grandpa and my father joined the Royal Naval reserve and saw out the war as shore based naval officers respectively.

The furore surrounding the City of Flint and her American crew under a German prize crew continued after they left Tromsø being a major political issue for both Norway and America. Finally the Norwegian authorities boarded the vessel in Haugesund and returned the vessel to its crew and interned the German prize crew.

Repatriation

[10]  On release in Tromsø the crew of the Stonegate were put up in a hotel until the next day when they left in the coastal ferry “Midnattsol” for Bergen.

En route they arrived in Trondheim on Tuesday 24^th. October and remained on board. A reporter tried to interview the crew but was politely told by the Captain that there would be no further interviews. This was after discussion with the British consul in Trondheim and no doubt to restrict the spreading of war sensitive information.

They continued to Bergen where they were placed in a hotel awaiting a ship to the UK.

Norris (10) states that the Washington Post reported on the 30^th. October that the Norwegian steamer “Mira”dropped them off “at an unidentified port on the north east coast of England that day”.

The Mira was a ferry belonging to the Bergen Steamship company operating a ferry service between Bergen and the Tyne Commission Quay in North Shields on the River Tyne close to Newcastle.

This picture (21) shows the crew disembarking from the ferry on the River Tyne. The man at the back on the left is my father.

So by the end of the month of October 1939 my father and grandfather returned to their homes in Whitby and Robin Hoods Bay respectively after two and a half weeks in captivity!

There is a twist in the tail of this story. On their return home to Robinhoods bay, Dad tried to enlist again and go to sea in contravention of his signing the Hague Convention not to do so. His discharge book  shows he signed on the S.S. Widestone of Turnbull Scotts in South Shields on the 13th. December 1939, some six weeks after returning from Norway. However, he was discharged from that ship in South Shields on the 12th. January 1940 with the comment "R.A","running agreement" that enabled him to return if he desired it.

However, this did not happen as he was drafted into the Royal Naval Reserve to HMS Beaver a shore establishment on the river Humber at Grimsby on the 22nd. February 1940 and married my mother on the 23rd. March 1940 in Cleethorpes with grandfather in attendance. In December 1940, yours truly appeared and another generation started.

Acknowledgements

This article would not have been possible without the assistance of two family members:

•      My mother who gave me the original documents concerning the Stonegate incident and inscribed the bound copy of the London Illustrated News covering the incident.
•        My brother, Peter Douglas, who is the family archivist and has done much research on our two families.
• Also Beate Kjørslevik, photographer at the Norwegian Maritime Museum in Oslo, Norway. She took the battered copy of the London Illustrated News and scanned the pages relating to the Stonegate incident.

 

Appendix

The London Illustrated News was a major source of information in this article. Their special artist Mr. G.H. Davis worked with my grandfather to create the drawings that were published in the issue of November 18^th. 1939.

 

Bibliography

x

1.	The Illustrated London News. 1939 November 11: p. 69-698,706-709.
2.	Postcard of Pocket Battleship "Deutschland". 1939. Original signed photo given to Catain Randal by Admiral Wenneker.
3.	Mannen med brillene er Captein Randall. 1939 October 30..
4.	Arbeidersblad O. 1939 Oct 25..
5.	Google Maps, Map data @2017 Google NEG . [Online].
6.	Roskill SW. Chapter V! The cruises of the Admiral Graf Spee and Deutschland 1939. In Roskill SW. The war at Sea 1939-1945. p. Map 11.
7.	Tidene A. 1939 Oct 25..
8.	Hague A. http://www.convoyweb.org.uk/hague/index.html. [Online].; 2017.
9.	Google Maps, Map data @2017 Google NEG,. [Online].
10.	Norris AJ. A maelstrom of International Law and intrigue: the remarkable voyage of the S.S. City of Flint. Rutgers University. 2013 July 8.
11.	Anon. Naval History and Heritage Command. [Online].; 2016. Available from: https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/.
12.	Johnmeyer H. The sinking of the Athenia. Something about everything military. In.
13.	Gainard J. Yankee Skipper: The life story of Joseph Gainard, Captain of the City of Flint: Kessinger Publishing, LLC; 2007.
14.	Chan CP. http://ww2db.com/. [Online]. Available from: http://ww2db.com/person_bio.php?person_id=87.
15.	Emmerich M. Uckermark (Altmark in German). [Online].; 2011. Available from: http://www.german-navy.de/kriegsmarine/ships/auxships/uckermark/operations.html.
16.	Michael W. Pocock. Maritime Quest. [Online].; 2017. Available from:  http://www.maritimequest.com/
17.	Tromsø Blad. "City of Flint". 1939 October 31..
18.	Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI). Arctic Sea Ice Charts from Danish Meteorological Institute, 1893 - 1956. [Online]. Available from: https://nsidc.org.
19.	The Hague Convetion (XIII). Full text of "The Hague convention (XIII) of 1907 concerning the rights and duties of neutral powers in naval war". [Online]. Available from: https://archive.org/stream/hagueconventionx00inte/hagueconventionx00inte_djvu.txt.
20.	International Committee of the Red Cross. Treaties, States Parties and Commentaries. [Online]. Available from: Https://ihl-databases.ircrc.org.
21.	Crew of raider fear us. Daily Mirror. 1939 October 31.

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[1] Lifeboat nameplate from the Stonegate

[2] Ships generally do not achieve their stated design speed on a voyage. This is especially true of steam reciprocating engines. Therefore 8 knots has been used to calculate distance instead of 10 knots.

 

[3] All routes and positions calculated are approximate based on standard speeds and normal navigation practice

[4] HX1 was the first convoy from Halifax Nova Scotia to Liverpool.

[5] The photo was taken after repatriation to the UK when Grandpa was in the Royal Naval Reserve hence the “wavy” stripes.

[6] Copy of original apprentice indentures to F.G.W. Randall

[7] Copy of a copy of grandpa’s masters certificate dated November 1939 after repatriation to UK. Presumably the original was lost with the ship.

[8] Captain Joseph Gainard. Photo credit: Yankee Skipper: The life story of Joseph Gainard.

[9] The sinking of the Stonegate as depicted in a drawing in the London Illustrated News. The signature is that of the artist.

[10] Picture of Grandpa on the Midnattsol in Trondheim (Newspaper Tromsø 30^th. October 1939)