The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-10-31
Seized City Of Flint Captain Was Defiant
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''The Americans made many wise cracks when they saw the Germans trying to obliterate Identification marks from the City of Flint. The ship entered Tromsoe flying the Norwegian flag"
 Daring Attempt Revealed
 The daring attempt of a German tanker to enter British ship con- voy and help 8 submarine get into British port was revealed today.
 The convoy was entering a west coast port. It was about to split up, according to plan, when it was mo- ticed that an oil tanker was trail- ing. The escort commander sig nailed the tanker to close in. The reply was unintelligible. Close scru- tiny revealed that the tanker did not belong to the convoy. A war ship then rushed to it and a detail boarded it and found that 1t was German.
 Radio messages which the tanker had been sending were then exam ined. It was seen that the messages had instructed a German subma- rine in the vicinity to follow astern. The submarine was sighted. Ap- parently 1t had meant to creep into the British port as another subma- rine had entered Scapa Flow to sink the Battleship Royal Oak. Depth charges were dropped around the submarine and it was believed to have been sunk. A British prize crew took the tanker into port. Whereabouts Mysterious
 Copenhagen, Denmark, Oct. 31- (UP)-The American freighter City of Flint, in charge of its Nal prize crew, was believed steaming down the Norwegian coast today, hugging the three-mile-limit of Norwegian territorial waters, on its way to the Skager Rak and the safety of a German port.
 Reports from Tromsoe, where the City of Flint put in yesetrday, in- dicated that the ship might be short of supplies for its 1,050 mile voyage to the Baltic.
 We'll informed foreign sources at Tromsoe told the United Press by telephone that when the ship wis., tied there on its way from Mur- mansk, Russia, to Germany between noon and l p. m. yesterday, Nor wegian authorities refused to permit 1t to take on supplies" which the prize crew had said it needed.
 Informants said the ship, enter ing Norwegian waters, asked that the German consul be told 1t needed supplies. The consul, Henrik Jebens, boarded the ship and talked to the prize crew. But at the inSiStence of Norwegian authorities, and with the urging of Norwegian warship, the Nazis took the ship out of port.
 Off1cials refused to say whether the Nazi prize crew made any at tempt to land any or all of the City of Flint'S American crew.
 It was believed here that the Nor wegian insistence that the captured steamship leave Norwegian waters was due to the fact that 1t had put in at Tromsoe on its way to Russia. This, 1t was held, indicated that the Nazi-C Communist claim that the ship was "non-navigable" was un- true and that Norway might be in- volved in dispute if 1t aided in trying to substantiate, even indi- rectly, any SucA claim. It was rainy, and the sea was heavy, when the City of Flint left TromSoe.
 Norwegian authorities refused to give any information. A high ad- miralty official at Oslo said that all official employees had been expressly forbidden to discuss the ship. The new Norwegian safety of the realm act prescribes imprisonment for anyone who reveals the movements of either neutral or belligerent ships.
 Prize Crew Gets Food Oslo, Norway, Oct. 3l.-(UP)- Telephonic reports from Tromsoe conflicting with earlier versions, said today that the City of Flint, cap- tured American freighter had taken aboard supplies including foodstufYs which gave 1t a wide cruising radius, an indicated that 1t might not 70 direct to Germany.
 Earlier reports from Tromsoe said that when the City of Flint called there yesterday its German prize crew were refused supplies.
 Reports received here, however, said that the steamship signalled for food and water and that 1t re- ceived these and other supplies as 1t steamed slowly through Tromsoe Fjord.
 It was asserted that the ship was preceded and followed by German armed merchantmen.
 After leaving the fjord, 1t was said, the ship headed out toward the open sea.
 There was speculation at Trom- soc. 1t was said. whether the ship really was headed for Germany be. cause the supplies t took aboard would permit 1t to cruise for a con- siderable time.