Dunedin Star (ship)
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Dunedin Star was a Blue Star Line ship that ran aground on the Skeleton Coast of Namibia on November 29, 1942, while carrying passengers and cargo from Liverpool to Saldanha Bay, South Africa, Aden and Egypt. She was carrying munitions and supplies as part of the Allies World War II effort but had fare-paying passengers as well
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[edit] Shipwreck
Dunedin Star was a 530 foot long refrigerated cargo liner built by the Cammell Laird company of Birkenhead, England, and was launched in 1935. Her grounding became famous because of the perilous conditions facing the survivors after they landed on the desolate Namibian shore. The coastline is completely inhospitable, being guarded on one side by the fierce surf and on the other by the almost completely barren Namib Desert that runs almost the entire length of the coast and varies in width from 50–160km.
The crew managed to send an SOS distress call that was intercepted onshore at Walvis Bay.
A rescue tug, the Sir Charles Elliott, ran on to rocks before reaching the stranded ship and two of her crew members lost their lives while trying to swim ashore.
A Ventura bomber dropped supplies on to the beach but crashed into the ocean on the way back to Walvis Bay. The crew not only survived the crash but also managed to swim ashore and later find their way to the overland rescue convoy. The airmen, together with the original survivors, eventually reached Windhoek on Christmas Eve, twenty-six days after the original disaster.
Some of the cargo was salvaged in 1951 [1], some is still visible to this day on the beach about 80km south of the Kunene river mouth.
[edit] Reference
- Schoeman, Amy (1998). Naturally Intimate. Travel Africa Magazine.
[edit] Further reading
- Jeff Dawson - Dead Reckoning: The Dunedin Star Disaster (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005) ISBN 0-297-84879-8
- John H. Marsh - Skeleton Coast (1950)
