Description
Book Synopsis In Europe, World War II was four months old by Christmas 1939. The City of Flint, an American freighter, had been instrumental in rescuing 1200 passengers from a torpedoed ocean liner, making headlines on both sides of the Atlantic. She was captured by a Nazi warship and sent towards a German port, rigged with explosives to ensure the British Navy would not capture it. Norwegian soldiers liberated the ship--by then even Hitler knew her name.
Christmas 1942 saw the City of Flint in New York with other freighters loading for North Africa. Allied codes had been cracked and the convoy was expected by a group of U-Boats. Secretly carrying poison gas as part of her cargo, she was torpedoed and exploded on January 25, 1943.
Eleven survivors in her fourth lifeboat fought mountainous seas, sharks and hunger. One went mad and walked overboard. The others survived 46 days before rescue. Eyewitness accounts, war diaries and archival sources bring this untold
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
The Personalities
The Ships
Abbreviations
Section I—The Beginning
1. Preparations
2. A Helping Hand
Section II—The Prize
3. Trapped
4. Politics of Neutrality
5. Americans in Communist Soviet Union
6. Back to Norway
7. The Chase
8. Turning Point
9. Pawn
10. Cargo
11. Going Home
Section III—Convoys
12. Convoy—to Murmansk
13. Basra
Section IV—Torpedoed
14. The Prey
15. The Target
Section V—Postscript
16. Still Waters Once Again
Appendix 1: The Prize Command
Appendix 2: City of Flint Crew in Norway, 1939
Appendix 3: City of Flint Crew at Murmansk in 1942
Appendix 4: City of Flint Crew at Persian Gulf in 1942
Appendix 5: City of Flint Crew on the Final Convoy, January 1943
Chapter Notes
Bibliography
Index
