Earth's circumference mile in the seventeenth century and the metre in the eighteenth. Earth's polar circumference is almost exactly 40,000 km because the metre was originally calibrated on this measurement (1/10-millionth of the distance between the poles and the equator), which is almost exactly 21,600 nautical miles (being defined as one minute of a degree – i.e. 360 multiplied by 60). It has been described as "the single most important measurement" of the Earth, assuming the Earth to be a sphere (the Earth is an technically an ellipsoid, albeit with just 0.3% flattening). Earth's circumference lines are the foundation of the coordinate
German submarine U-852 three survivors from the 35-man "Peleus". Two weeks later the "U-852" sank the British cargo ship SS "Dahomian" off Cape Town on 1 April. This time the "U-852" left rather than attack the survivors. On 30 April 1944, "U-852" was spotted in the Indian Ocean by a Vickers Wellington bomber flying from Aden. After being left unable to dive due to damage from aerial depth charges, she headed for the coast of Somalia. However, before reaching land the U-Boat came under attack from six RAF bombers from 621 Squadron. Eck was forced to run aground on a coral reef ()