City of Flint
Photo courtesy of the Allen Collection
| Name | City of Flint | ||
| Type: | Steam merchant (Hog Island) | ||
| Tonnage | 4.963 tons | ||
| Completed | 1920 - American Int Shipbuilding Corp, Hog Island PA | ||
| Owner | Moore-McCormack SS Co, New York | ||
| Homeport | Philadelphia | ||
| Date of attack | 25 Jan, 1943 | Nationality:  American | |
| Fate | Sunk by U-575 (Günther Heydemann) | ||
| Position | 34.47N, 31.10W - Grid DG 1326 - See location on a map - | ||
| Complement | 65 (6 dead and 59 survivors). | ||
| Convoy | UGS-4 (straggler) | ||
| Route | New York (13 Jan) - Casablanca | ||
| Cargo | War cargo, including tanks, aircrafts, jeeps, gasoline in drums, poison gas and telegraph poles | ||
| History | Laid down as Collingdale, completed in February 1920 as City of Flint for US Shipping Board (USSB). On 4 Sep, 1939, the City of Flint (Master Joseph A. Gainard) met the Swedish motor yacht Southern Cross and took over 236 survivors from the Athenia, which had been torpedoed by U-30 the day before and brought them to Halifax. On 9 Oct, 1939, the City of Flint (Master Joseph A. Gainard) was taken as prize by the German pocket battleship Deutschland en route from New York to the United Kingdom in the North Atlantic, because she was suspected to carry contraband. On 21 October, she arrived in Tromsø, Norway, for water. The Norwegian government ordered the ship to leave and she sailed for Murmansk. | ||
| Notes on loss | The City of Flint (Master John B. MacKenzie) sailed from New York as part of the convoy UGS-4. While en route she encountered a storm that caused her deckload to shift and she straggled from the convoy. The ship maintained a zigzag course at 11 knots and tried to find the other ships, when she was hit by one torpedo from U-575 at 22.05 hours on 25 Jan, 1943. The torpedo struck on port side at the #1 hold and ignited the oil and gasoline stored there. As the vessel settled by the head, flames engulfed the forward section. With the engines secured, the crew of ten officers, 30 crewmen, 24 armed guards (the ship was armed with one 4in, one 3in and six 20mm guns) and one US Army Security officer abandoned ship with four lifeboats in rough seas within ten minutes. Then a second torpedo struck the port side aft of the bridge and the ship sank bow first at 23.05 hours about 300 miles south of Flores, Azores. Two crewmen and four armed guards died in the attack. The chief cook Robert Daigle was picked up by U-575 as prisoner and was later taken to a POW camp. Three of the boats stayed in the area for two days before setting sail for the Azores. They used a portable radio for sending distress calls. The following day, the Portuguese destroyer Lima (D 333) picked up 48 men and landed them at Ponta del Garda, Azores. On 28 January, HMS Quadrant (G 11) (LtCdr W.H. Farrington, RN) rescued the ten survivors in the fourth boat and landed them in Gibraltar. | ||
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