The author John Marsh began writing about nautical subjects at the age of fourteen. He wrote in his preface: “This is the most remarkable shipwreck- and rescue story that has come my way in twenty years of waterfront reporting” This ship, the DUNEDIN STAR, ran aground at the Skeleton Coast of then South West Africa in 1942. When the call for aid came from the helpless men, women and children, marooned on the desert beach, the men of the South African Navel Forces, the Air Forces, the Army and Police and the Administration for Railways and Harbours and even the Royal Navy got together to organize this amazing rescue operation.