SCENE OF ESCAPE REVISITED

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 129, 25 February 1938, Page 10

SCENE OF ESCAPE REVISITED

Count Von Luckner On Motuhihi Island By Telegraph—Press Association. Auckland, February 24. Feet planted wide apart, hands deep in his jacket pockets, pipe blowing clouds of smoke, and with his wife on his arm, Count von Luckner stood today on a bluff at Motuhihi Island, and laughing repeatedly, pointed out the path of his escape from the island in the launch Pearl, while a prisoner of war 20 years ago. From a promontory his eye travelled to the hazy blueness of Cape Colville. “Oh, gee! It hasn’t changed a bit,” he chuckled. Accompanied by Major-General Sir George Richardson, General Hewlett, a British Army officer, the Hon. T. Bloodworth, chairman of the harbour board, members of the board’s staff, and several guests, Count von Luckner visited the island in his auxiliary schooner Seeteufel. Throughout the morning he re-explored the beaches, hills, and valleys of the island, with the enthusiasm of a schoolboy, and always with his wife on his-arm. On the wall of his old room he wrote: “My old Toom which I entered again after 19 years, 24/2/38. Felix von Luckner.” He insisted that his wife should also sign her name. Later the party inspected the health eamp community of the Sunshine Association.