A BIG THRILL

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 87, 13 April 1944, Page 6

A BIG THRILL

RECAPTURE OF HIS ISLAND O.G, SYDNEY, March, 28. Charles Ccoke, dispatch clerk at a Sydney brewery,' was the' most excited man in Australia last week, when news came through that United States marines had invaded the St. Matthias group, 85 miles north-west of Kavieng, and seized.Emira Island. Gooke was on his way home from the brewery when he. read in the evening newspaper that the island had been taken. Toan astonished fellowpassenger, Cooke yelled: "They've got my island back!" The remark was over the;head of the stranger, but the news rrfeant much ti> Cooke. Emira was the first and only territory in the Pacific taken by the Germans in this war. It was later taken over by the :Jap's. Cooke was manager of an Emira plantation for W. R. Carpenter, Ltd., when, on December 20, 1940, three German raiders landed 498. prisoners from the Rangitane and nine other ships they- had sunk. The Germans took possession of, the islahd "in the name of the Reich" and killed all the livestock for "the crews and prisoners. Cooke, at revolver point, drove German officers on a tour of the island, and gave them wrong information oh

shipping.

The prisoners landed were

243 white men and 57 women and 1 children, 199 Chinese and Filipinos. Some were wounded, all were short of clothes: A week after the Germans had departed, Cooke and the prisoners were brought to Australia by the Nel,'lore. ' '■■ ■-. ■" ■.■■■■• ..

That was not the only adventure in Cooke's life. While working for the : Anglo-Persian' Oil Company in Central Iran, about 1926, he stumbled on a ceremony being carried out by a :rembte:Mohammedan tribe. They were beheading a man who had been kept forl2 months, on the "fat of the land" and, given ■ six wives. Cooke was ' storied away from the human sacrifice,.- ■;.;•. . . : .

■V From Iran he went to work for the ,United "Fruit Company in Nicaragua. He "lived with a gun in his hand" ; through five Central American revolutions. . , ' '