"Captain Stay Put"

A dense fog hung low as the Isbrandtsen Company's 6,711-ton freighter Flying Enterprise moved away from her pier in Hamburg; her Danish-born master, Henrik Kurt Carlsen, 37, was obliged to conn her down the harbor by radar. There was nasty weather outside, and she creaked and complained as she rolled down past Dover and through the English Channel, heavy with a cargo of coffee beans, antique furniture, automobiles, U.S. mail and Rotterdam pig iron.

But until the seventh day of her New York-bound voyage, nothing suggested that she faced anything more than a routine crossing of the wintry Atlantic. Then, west and north of the Bay of Biscay, the ship was enveloped by an awesome storm. A black sky pressed down. The horizon vanished in flying spindrift. As solid seas began thundering over the vessel's bow, lier radio picked up a warning: worse was to come--the fiercest December gales in 22 years were howling along the European coast.

The Hull Cracks. On the bridge, the captain calmly prepared for trouble. During nearly 23 years as a deep-water sailor, amiable, stubborn Kurt Carlsen had been in his share of tight spots, but he bore small resemblance to the dramatic sea dog of fiction. He had, for instance, a penchant for providing flowers for the ship's passengers. He enjoyed toiling on deck with the crew. He kept a motorcycle on the ship, and used it for jaunts ashore--expeditions for which he often donned an electrically lighted bow tie. He was an unabashed radio ham and on dull nights at sea he liked to spell the ship's operator.

But for all this he was a fine seaman and a cool and capable officer. Some of his crew could remember how he had reacted four years ago when one of his "black gang" was found on the deck spouting blood from knife wounds in the throat and arms. There was no anesthetic on board, but the sweating Carlsen stitched the fainting victim's throat, sewed up two arteries, sprinkled the wounds with sulfa powder, and saved his life. Carlsen then grabbed the would-be murderer, got a confession, and went back to the bridge as if nothing had happened.

He was: as businesslike in the face of the storm. Wind and seas rose, hour by hour; by nightfall the vessel was pitching & rolling with sickening violence: Furniture slid and tumbled, tools leaped clattering from their hooks, dishes broke, and over the bedlam the wind yowled and screamed. At dawn two unbelievable waves (sailors swore they were 75 ft. high) fell on the Flying Enterprise. With a cannonlike bang, her shuddering deck and hull cracked open, just forward of her squat, white superstructure.

She reeled drunkenly on. But at 10:45 in the morning, with No. 3 hold filling, she rolled too far, and hung, half on her side, unable to right herself. Below, her ovenlike engine room became a madhouse.

Oil from overhead gravity tanks poured down in slippery streams on the tilted deck plates. Steam began to fail. The whine of the turbines diminished. Despite the struggles of the exhausted engineers, the generator failed, and with it power for lights and the laboring pumps.

The Rescue. In the early afternoon, with the storm still rising and his ship sodden under his feet, Captain Carlsen sent an SOS: ENCOUNTERING SEVERE HURRICANE . . . SITUATION GRAVE . . . HAVE 30 DEGREE LIST AND JUST DRIFTING . . . At nightfall things got worse; the pig iron in the holds shifted and the ship rolled to port again as if she were going completely over. She hung, listing now at 60 degrees; at times the deck was almost perpendicular. The captain clawed his way among his ten passengers (five women, a boy, four men) with a bottle of brandy, reassured them, had them covered with blankets as they huddled together for the night in a passageway.

The 40-man crew, in heavy clothes and lifejackets, hung on where they could. Carlsen radioed: HOPING TO STAY AFLOAT UNTIL DAY. At dawn the ship rolled and tumbled like a half-submerged log, the red paint on her bottom plainly visible. But she floated. And out beyond her, half hidden by the smoking seas, lay a wallowing covey of rescue ships: the U.S. freighters Southland and War hawk, U.S. military transport General A. W. Greely, the Norwegian tanker H. Westfal-Larsen, the German steamship Arion, the British steamship Sherborne.

Red-eyed, bewhiskered Kurt Carlsen said: "We have to get the passengers off." But how? Swooping lifeboats from the rescue vessels dared come little closer than a hundred yards amid the crazy welter of water; the Flying Enterprise boats were disabled or waterlogged. In matter-of-fact tones, Carlsen ordered that all must jump. A brave woman passenger, Mrs. Elsa Muller, went first, was picked up by a boat from the Southland. After that, with lifebelts strapped tight, more leaped or were pushed into the sea. A crewman jumped with each passenger.

It took a long time. The waiting vessels pumped oil to smooth the raging waters. Even so, some of the jumpers were smashed back against the crippled freighter's plates. Lifeboats were broken against their mother ships. But two by two, swimmers floundered away, were picked up, gasping, oil-covered, half-drowned, and hauled to safety. Alone, Carlsen grinned and waved away the last waiting boat. The captain had elected to stay aboard his wounded ship.

The master of the transport Greely, eyeing the Flying Enterprise through flying spume, was appalled, even though four of her five holds were still tight. "I believed that what watertight integrity she possessed would collapse," he said, "sinking her immediately." The vessel's owners urged Carlsen by radio against "further risking your life." When the message was relayed, a new storm was smashing the ship, but he replied: "I am remaining till vessel saved or sunk."*

All over the world a kind of cheer went up in millions of hearts at Carlsen's stubborn, valiant pride in his ship and his calling. Said his wife, waiting fearfully in their house in Woodbridge, NJ.: "You can't do anything with him ... we are praying . . ."

London's newspapers admiringly nicknamed him "Captain Stay Put" and "Captain Enterprise," used great blocks of newsprint, day after day, on the tale of his chilling adventure. British underwriters knotted around the bulletin board in Lloyd's to follow news announcements about the captain's battle. All over the U.S., millions followed newspaper and radio accounts with breathless interest.

It was a nerve-racking tale. Furious new storms mauled the half-buried Flying Enterprise after Captain Carlsen began his vigil. It was four days before the big British tug Turmoil could leave Falmouth for the scene. Two more days & nights passed before she arrived. It took nearly 36 hours and ten fruitless and heartbreaking attempts before Carlsen and the tug's daring young mate--who had leaped on board the freighter to help him--managed to make a towing line fast on the ship's dizzily tilted fo'c'sle head. But as she began creeping sluggishly behind the straining tug, the weather calmed. This week the coast of England, safety and a roaring welcome were close at hand. "Captain Stay Put" was still aboard, ready for anything.

*The seagoing tradition by which captains stay by their ships hinges in part on the laws governing salvage--though vessels may not necessarily be claimed as derelicts if abandoned, the burden of proving an intent to reclaim rests upon the owner if the ships are taken under tow with nobody aboard. Also, a shipmaster who abandons his vessel usually has a hard time getting a new job--if she stays afloat.

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