A Twist of Sand

AUTHOR'S FOREWORD

It is a fact that the German U-boat High Command tested experimental U-boats in Cape waters in 1941. Captain Johann Linbach, master of the German freighter Hastedt, was reported by The Star, Johannesburg, on 6th September, 1957: "During 1941, when Germany was testing a new model of submarine engine, six U-boats so equipped were sent to Cape waters…. only one returned."

The phenomenon of the "double sun" was recorded by meteorologists of the Pretoria Weather Bureau at Swakopmund, South West Africa, on 11th December, 1957.

Adiabatic warming of winter winds is an authentic meteorological occurrence in South West Africa. The colouring of the sea by the autumn bloom on plankton is also vouched for. It occurs in conjunction with gymnodinium, a deadly poison.

I have taken a liberty with the actual date on which the Dunedin Star was lost.

Pretoria, 1959