HMSAS Africana

The HMSAS Africana was a minesweeping trawler of the South African Seaward Defence Force during the Second World War. She was originally a sea fisheries research vessel and was latter fitted for mine-sweeping and survey duties in the early 1930s. She was retained for survey duties off the South African coast throughout the war and in October 1942 she was involved in the rescue of survivors from the American cargo vessel Anne Hutchinson after she was torpedoed by U-504 off East London. In addition to survey, she was used extensively for search and rescue operations in the latter part of the war and her final rescue operation was rescuing 49 survivors of the Canadian SS Point Pleasant Park which was torpedoed by U-532 on 23 February 1945 off the coast of Luderitz Bay.

After the war, Africana was returned to the South African Department of Sea Fisheries and was re-fitted as a fishery survey vessel, starting her first post-war survey in May 1947. She remained in service in this role until 1950 when she was replaced by the new survey vessel Africana II. She was sold to Benjamin Gelcer who used her as a fishing trawler. She later joined the fishing fleet of Irwin and Johnson and was used until 1965 when she was finally withdrawn from fishing service and broken up in Table Bay, to be sold as scrap.