* * * * * After successfully crossing the Indian Ocean, the SS Brazil made a port of call at Cape Town, South Africa, on Sunday, 14 th June 1942. There they took aboard fresh provisions and 47 more refugees bound for the States. Port of Cape Town, South Africa. Loose lips – sink ships. Among these refugees were a number of merchant sailors who had been torpedoed. One merchant seaman in particular had been torpedoed on three separate occasions, while attempting to leave Cape Town. He privately told my dad that the riskiest part of his ordeal was not abandoning ship, but bobbing at sea all alone in a life jacket for two or three days afterwards, while waiting for rescue usually by a fishing boat. The nights being the very worst, for that’s when immense, underwater cr...