High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! 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 Point Pleasant Park which was torpedoed by U-532 on 23 February 1945 off the coast of Luderitz Bay.