VON LUCKNER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 113, 14 May 1936, Page 9

VON LUCKNER.

WAR-TIME EXPLOITS. VISIT TO NEW ZEALAND. " TREATED AS GENTLEMAN." j | Count Graf Felix von Luckncr, whose j war-time exploit of escaping from | Motuihi Island with other German j prisoners of war. and the seizure of the scow Moa" is well remembered, expects j to visit Auckland at the end of the i present year in his own yacht. I In a letter to an Auckland resident, the count says that he often thinks of Xew Zealand, where he spent six- • teen months as a prisoner of war, and J he adds that he was treated in every i manner as a gentleman. i Yon Luckncr was an officer in the j German Xavy during the war. In 1910 he was given command of the. auxiliary sailing ship Seeadler, which had two 4.2inch guns concealed on board. Disguised as the Norwegian ship Irma, she cleared a German port, and made for the Xorth Atlantic, where she was held up and examined by a British auxiliary cruiser. After inspection of the raider's papers, she was allowed to proceed. The Seeadler then made south, and in January, 1917, captured and sank a British steamer after removing the crew. Continuing her cruise through the South Atlantic, the Seeadler captured and sank a number of ships. The Seeadler rounded Cape Horn, and on entering the Pacific made for Mopclia Island, in the Society Group, the intention being to rest the crew and clean the hull of the raider. The Seeadler reached there, and then was cast on a coral reef by a tidal wave. Von Luckner decided with a few members of his crew to set out in a whaleboat for the Cook Islands or Fiji, with the intention of capturing a sailing vessel. They called at the Cook Islands, and then went on to Fiji. Their arrival at Wnkaya Island excited suspicion, and i von Luckncr and his companions were I arrested and brought to Auckland.

Yon Luckncr and the members of his crew were placed on Motuilii Island in Auckland Harbour, and from there oiw December 13. 1917, they made an escape in a launch which they seized. A course was set for Mercury Island, and off there the scow Moa was seized. Once on hoard the larger vessel a course was set for the Kermadec Islands. The Moa, was at Curtis Island when the cable steamer Iris (now the. Recorder), which had been sent from Auckland, came up, and after a shot had been fired von Luckncr surrendered. Count von Luckncr and his companions were brought back to Auckland as prisoners of war. They were kept in Xciv Zealand until its conclusion, and then sent back to their own country. A photograph of Count von Luckncr and his wife appears on Page 11.