The Wilmington morning star., 1940-02-11
Clio UNION RAPS
FLlNT'S CAPTAIN
Continued From Page One)

VI OS1SS VI NNSS
asked that his license be revoked.
At his Melrose, Mass, home, Cap
tain Gainard denied the charges and,
recalling that he was master of the
freighter Algic when it's crew went
on a sit-down strike in Montevideo,
Uruguay, in September, 1887, said:
st am probably the most unpopular
shipmaster so far as some elements
are concerned. I expect I will have
this sort of thing as long as I go to
sea and I doubt 1 will go very long,
because I will be too much trouble
to shipowners. 1t is the object OF
these mer to drive me out of my
job"
Fourteen of the Algic's crews, all
members of the NMU, were con-
victed at Baltimore of mutiny. Three
others pleaded guilty in federal
court, Brooklyn, to charges of neg
lect of duty.
The union, in a statement, said
the charges against Gainard were
flied by its attorney, William L.
Standard, with Commdr. R. S. Field,
director of marine inspection and
navigation in Washington.
Accompanying the charges were
afidavits by Peter Walding, chief
cook, of Midland City, Ala, and
Henry Androvett, mess boy, of New
York.
Gainard, the complaint said, had
several opportunities to get his crew
out of the hands of the Germans and
to contact American authorities, but
had refused. 1t was also charged that
he threatened to put the crew in
irons when a spokesman for the mel:
asked permission for the crew to go
ashore at Tromsoe, Norway, to get
in touch with Mrs. Richard Borden
Hartman, U. S. minister to Norway.
The City of Flint, which rescued
PIG survivors of the British liner
Athena, sunk on Sept. 3, the day
Britain and France declared war,
sailed again from New York Oct. 5.
Six days later the German pocke
battleship Deutschland stopped her
and put aboard a prize crew and 3S
British seamen from the S. S. Stone
gate which the Deutschland had
sunk.
British Put Ashore
The Germans later put the City
of Flint in at Tromsoe, where the
British were landed.
"At no time during the stay at
Tromsoe did Gainard attempt to rs
sert his rights as a neutral in a
neutral port and free the ship from
the German crew." the unions state
ment said.
At Murmansk, Russia, where the
City of Flint was taken after leav'
ing Tromsoe, the statement con
tinued, the German prize crew was
jailed ashore, and Captain Gainard
vas told he could sail.
But the skipper, the union charg
ed, told his crew he would stay un
til he got a convoy.
He refused to leave the port anG
refused to give the crew an opport
unity to make good it's escape" sale
the statement.
Finally, in order to get the ship
out of port, Soviet authorities put
the German prize crew back on hel
and ordered her to sail. She sale
for Norway again, arriving two days
later at Haugesund where the Ger
mans were removed by the Nor
wegian authorities and the ship sent
to Bergen"
Gainard's Reply
In reply to the statement, Cap
tain Gainard said today, as he ha(
said in Baltimore Jan. 81 when hi.
ship arrived after her 113-day voy
age, that the crew "all behaved
splendidly.'
There we're times" he added
when my crew and myself would
like to have take. the ship over, but
clearer judgement prevailed.
of course I wouldn't let them ge
ashore-I couldn't go myself. 1 spent
most of my time trying to get ashore
or to get messages ashore while we
were in Russia and Norway, but ]
have no consciousness of jeopardiz
ing the mems lives.
1--WE were in double danger in bel
ligerent waters, with belligerents
aboard, and had to be doubly care.
full, but there was no trouble ani
there W was any question O.
putting anyone in irons. There was
no occasion for it."