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Under cover of"Alcantara's" smoke, "Thor," at 1335 (1.3 5PM) steamed away, and then her crew worked upon changing her appearance.

"Alcantara" survived and steamed back to her base, it needed a collision mat fitted over her side to stop the ocean rushing in, whilst 2 feet of water slopped around above the top of her tanks.

By the end of July, "Thor" was in the latitude of Cape Town, she slowed down to 5 knots, spending 12 days boiler cleaning, and making repairs to the battle damage.

The ship was to meet "Rekem" as arranged by Berlin, to get rid of the prisoners, and replenish, but when they finally made the rendezvous this tanker was unable to accept the prisoners.

The 12th. of September, found "Thor" well East of Pernambuco, and they cruised to the northward for another 2 weeks, then came across a whaling factory ship- the Norwegian "Kosmos," she was a large vessel over 17,000 tons, with a full load of whale oil, a crew of 89, and bound for Curacao.

Kahler would have liked to get such a prize with this very valuable cargo of oil home to a French port now in German hands, but in his judgement, a number of factors mitigated against such action. "Kosmos" was short of fuel, she was a slow ship, it would be hard to disguise her, she had 2 very distinctive funnels, side by side, close to her stern. He sank this ship, to be later roundly criticised by his control in Berlin, for not trying to get such a valuable ship and cargo home.

British ship "Willesden"

Another boiler clean was carried out, as "Thor" wallowed in the mid Atlantic swell just North of the equator over the next 12 days.

On the 8th. of October, a ship was sighted enroute to America from Europe. "Thor" opened fire to immediately score a direct hit, but this did not prevent their quarry using her radio, gunfire continued, and the alarm radio signals jammed. 175 rounds were fired to score 4 hits, then a torpedo rushed to the target and hit, but still the "Natia" did not succumb, another 35 shells were required to finally sink her.

This ship, a British refrigerated freighter of 8,715 tons was on her way to Buenos Aires, one presumes to load meat for the return trip to Britain. She carried a large crew of 85, one of whom was killed, and another wounded by the gunfire.

"Thor" crammed these survivors onboard, to now carry a total of 368 prisoners.

"Rio Grande" now met "Thor," who at long last was able to divest herself of the burden of all the prisoners, one can imagine the sigh of relief now uttered by "Thor's" Captain, as once again he was relieved of this problem of feeding, housing and guarding them.

"Thor" now shaped a course for the River Plate/Capetown shipping route, being warned from home that between the Cape of Good Hope and Freetown in West Africa there were 8 enemy Cruisers operating, whilst a further 2 were off the South American East coast.

Early in December, at 0531 (5.31 AM), out of the fog loomed a large steamship, but four miles away.

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