"PERHAPS."

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 164, 13 July 1929, Page 2 (Supplement)

"PERHAPS."

(By H. L. Heatley, 12, Grey Street W., Onehunga, aged 16.) Some say tfctit we Germans during the war were human fiends, callous slayers of helpless women and children, that we were all the same. It is not true. For what some of our commanders did, let us all not bo blamed. I am a German by birth. I am also a German by upbringing, education and patriotism; but for all that I am human, so that when I tell you my story perhaps you will hear the different versions with an open mind. I set my notes down as a diary, but I will endeavour to present, them to you in a more suitable form. * * * * I was standing in a room of bare furnishings, and before me, seated at a plain desk, was my admiral. "Understand, Leutnant-Kapitan, the order of the Prince is that the destruction of Allied shipping is to be carried on without mercy, and for this you have been allotted section 10a and D 103."

I felt it ho honour, and indeed it was not. I saluted and withdrew, taking my sealed orders with me. My arrival at Wilmsliaven coincided with that of the DlO3 from the cleaning slip, and I was ordered to get away After the passage of the mine fields we changed our course N.E. and I handed over to my second in command and turned in.

It was about an hour or so later that I was aroused by my coxswain, who reported a sail on the stitrboard quarter. It had a blaze of lights and right amidships was a huge cross plentifully and brightly illuminated by electric globes. "A splendid mark for a torpedo, think you, Herr Kapitan?" It was only my ober-leutnant and I did not heed him.

I did not take an excuse, like some of our commanders, aiid sink it, but instead I -ordered a full port helm and we slipped away in the darkness.

That hospital ship, headquarters knew, was due in the vicinity at that time and I had been told in my sealed orders to sink it, irrespective of the fact that it had two hundred women on board. To the stronger dictates of humanity I comimtted the gravest crime that an officer can—disobeyed orders. Spies of our espionage service in Portsmouth notified the admiral of the safe arrival of the s.s. Newton, and my dereliction of duty. Result, a court martial.

I was again standing in th 6 same room and before the same admiral. The reason was different.

."Herr Kapitan, the court had passed a sentence of death and it would have meant a. firing squad, but for one thing. It will interest you. 'From the British Admiral —Am pleased to see that you have one gentleman left in your service,' and while we considered it an insult to ourselves, we thought it in your favour. You may go." I had done my bit towards humanity, but some would say "He is just a German." Perhaps!