Blue Star's  S.S. "Africstar"

Blue Star's  S.S. "Afric Star" 1

On January 15^th 1941, the 12,000 ton, 15-knot, turbine-driven Blue Star steamer Afric Star, built in 1926, sailed from Rio de Janeiro for England by way of St. Vincent, Cape Verde Islands. Commanded by Captain Clement Ralph Cooper, she carried a full cargo of meat, a crew of 72, two naval gunners and two women passengers. On the morning of January 29^th  after an uneventful voyage, when still some hundreds of miles short of her destination (Lat. 8°4 Long. 2 ) they sighted a large ship flying the Russian ensign. For some hours the stranger remained at a distance, apparently keeping the Afric Star under observation. Then at about 2.0 p.m., the strange ship increased speed, approached the Afric Star, struck the Russian flag and hoisted the German, unmasked her guns and opened fire. Whether this was done before the Afric Star stopped and her crew had a chance to abandon ship I do not know; but the British ship caught fire, and her crew took to the lifeboats. The raider, which was the Kormoran, picked up the occupants of the boats, sank the Afric Star by gunfire, and then proceeded on her way south. Some days later the prisoners were transferred to the German supply tanker Nordmark which was masquerading under the "Stars and Strips" and the name of Dixie, and a few days afterwards to a ship called the Portland, a motor-vessel of 7,000 tons bound from Chile to Bordeaux in German-occupied France. On the voyage a fire broke out onboard, and the German guard, considering it was a case of mutiny and an attempt to destroy the ship, opened fire, killing one passenger and an able seaman of the Afric Star. The Portland with about 300 people from sunken vessels finally arrived at Bordeaux on March 14^th, the prisoners eventually being sent to internment camps in Germany, A deck boy of the Afric Star called King was repatriated to England. He had no idea of how it came about but having been called out of the camp he was told he was shifting quarters, and was sent to Naples. There he was put onboard a ship of the Italian Red Cross which took him to Turkey where he was transferred to a British hospital ship which landed him at Alexandria. After voyaging in several other ships he finally reached England via the Cape of Good Hope at the end of  June, 1943. The Kormoran met her fate at the hands of the Australian cruiser HMAS Sydney in the South Indian Ocean south of Java on November 19^th, 1941. The Sydney herself was sunk in the engagement, probably by a torpedo. In all, this particular raider sank eleven Allied merchant vessels in the North and South Atlantic and Indian Oceans in addition to the Sydney. In all some 75,375 tons sunk & captured. No further Blue Star vessels were to be sunk by German raiders.