Italian auxiliary cruiser Ramb II significant presence of Royal Navy in the Red Sea. With the start of Operation Compass in North Africa and the defeat of the Italian troops at Sidi Barrani on 9-12 December 1940, it became clear that it would be impossible for Italian troops in Libya to reach Italian East Africa to break its isolation. The fuel supplies were dwindling and were projected to be exhausted by June 1941. In anticipation of the inevitable fall of the colony, a plan was developed to send as many ships as possible to Japan or occupied France and to destroy all other ships that
Adolph Cornelis van Bruggen impossible when the former Dutch colony declared independence on 27 December 1949. Since Dolf had a firm interest in the tropics, the van Bruggens decided to move to Africa instead. They sailed to South Africa, stopping on their way at the remote Atlantic island of St Helena, in May 1957. Dolf had to make breakneck manoeuvres to reach the shore with a ‘klepdoos’ (a sweeping separator), thought by fellow-travellers to be a Geiger counter. In South Africa, Dolf had accepted a job at the Ministry of Agriculture in Pretoria. There he was charged with the study of insects and the