Dumas in New Zealand
For it was 1942 – most of the world was at war. Although Argentina was neutral, a strange craft on the high seas was unlikely to receive any courtesies from any of the belligerents. To keep as far as possible from the conflict, Dumas decided to sail from Buenos Aires eastabout around the southern hemisphere’s 40th parallel, the ‘Roaring Forties’.
Flying the unfamiliar flag of Argentina and completely unheralded, Dumas arrived in Wellington Harbour on Lehg II on 27th December 1942, 104 days and 7,400 miles out of Cape Town. Because it was wartime, no news of his passage had filtered through to the general public.
In Stalingrad the Red Army was breaking out of the German entrapment, the Americans were at the point of driving the Japanese out of Guadalcanal with help
