1876: Ann Staniland, this 192 ton wooden sailing schooner, built in 1857 by Waley Thorme and commanded by Captain John Richards was wrecked on the east bank of the Buffalo River in East London in the Eastern Cape. It was being towed by the tug London at the time and the loss was claimed to be deliberate, as the vessel had been seized to repay debts. Ann Staniland was carrying a cargo of rails and sleepers. She was under tow after a collision with Euterpe and hit the Eastern wall.
1897: Lilla/Lalla, this 80 ton wooden sailing schooner wrecked on the East Pier of the Kowie River in Port Alfred in the Eastern Cape after the tow cable broke whilst being towed over the bar by the launch Victoria. It was sais at the time that the tow rope was rotten. No lives were lost. Over the next week the hulk moved into the mid-channel where it turned keel up and disintegrated. The Lilla was on a voyage in ballast from Mossel Bay to East London in order to take on government stores.
1921: Losna, this Norwegian steel steam-powered ship wrecked between Great Fish Point and Hamburg in the Eastern Cape. It struck rocks, turned towards the shore, beached, and broke in half. Its cargo of timber was salvaged by the Flora and the Rusholme.
1942: Nova Scotia, this British steam-powered troop transport ship was torpedoed and sunk by U-177 off the KwaZulu-Natal coast, near the Mozambique border. Three torpedoes struck at 7:15 and the ship sank within 10 minutes. Only one lifeboat could be launched with the ship rapidly sinking, despite there being 1052 people on board. U-177 surfaced to question the survivors but the crew was perplexed to hear most of them speaking Italian. The Nova Scotia was transporting mail, some military personnel, South African guards, and 765 Italian civil internees. The crew of U-177 realised that they had most likely just killed many of their Italian allies, and immediately radioed for assistance with the Portuguese frigate, Alfonso de Albuquerque, being dispatched from Lourenço Marques (modern day Maputo). Only 194 people could be rescued, with 858 people perishing. Some of the survivor accounts spoke about being attacked by sharks whilst clinging to floating wreckage and many bodies washed up along the KwaZulu-Natal coastline over the following weeks. A total of 118 bodies washed up, all of which were assumed to be Italian POWs, and were buried in a mass grave in Durban at the Hilary Cemetery, alongside other Italian POWs. In 2008, 35 bodies were exhumed and reburied at the Master Divinae Gratiae church (Church of Madonna delle Gracie [Our Lady of Mercy]) in Pietermaritzburg, which was built by Italian POWs in 1944. One of the survivors was Pieter Snyman.
