EXACTLY 70 years ago, on Feb. 26, 1955, the destroyer Caldas, of the Colombian Navy, was sailing in the Gulf of Mexico, on its way back to the Colombian port of Cartagena.

It had come from Mobile, Alabama, where it had docked for several months for repairs. The night was clear, the sea was calm. But on Feb. 28, news broke that Caldas encountered a storm in the Caribbean Sea, and that eight of its crew members fell overboard and disappeared. A search for the seamen was conducted but none of them was found, and after four days, the missing sailors were officially declared dead. But on March 10, one survivor, 20-year-old Luis Alejandro Velasco, was found, barely alive, on a deserted beach in northern Colombia. He later said that when he saw a man leading a mule approach him as he lay on the beach, he realized that, 'more than thirst, hunger and despair, what tormented me most was the need to tell someone what had happened to me.'