MARINE HISTORY BOATS Shipwrecks –

Scarce early edition. pp. 148 illusts. #261025

(Names on fep and edge wear to dustjacket.)

Classic shipwreck and rescue story set around South Africa.

MV Dunedin Star was a British refrigerated cargo liner. She was built by Cammell Laird and Co in 1935–36 as one of Blue Star Line‘s Imperial Star-class ships, designed to ship frozen meat from Australia and New Zealand to the UK. The ship served in the Second World War and is distinguished for her role in Operation Halberd to relieve the siege of Malta in September 1941.

Dunedin Star was lost at the end of November 1942 when she ran aground at Clan Alpine Shoal in the South Atlantic on the Skeleton Coast of Namibia, then South West Africa. A complex sea, air and land operation overcame many setbacks and rescued all of her passengers, crew and gunners. An aircraft, a tug and two of the tug’s crew were lost in rescue attempts. It took a month for the last of Dunedin Star‘s crew to reach Cape Town, and more than two months for the last of the rescuers to return.