VON LUCKNER RETURNS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 140, 15 May 1936, Page 2

VON LUCKNER RETURNS.

TO REVISIT AUCKLAND. Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, May 14. Count Felix Von Luckner, whose war-time escape from Motuihi Island (Auckland) with other German prisoners oi war and seizure of the scow Moa is well remembered, expects to' visit Auckland at the end of the present year on hie own yacht. In a letter to an Auckland resident he says he often thinks of New Zealand, where lie spent six mouths as a prisoner of «ar and was treated in every way as a gentleman: Count Yon Luckner, then a German naval officer, commanded the auxiliary sailing ship Steadier. After capturing and sinking a number of ships, the Seeadler came to grief on a coral reef in the Society Group. Von Luckner and a few members of the crew sailed in a whaleboat to the Cook Islands and Fiji and, exciting suspicion, were arrested at Wakaya island and brought to Auckland and interned on Motuihi. In December, 1917, they seized a launch and captured the scow Moa oil’ Mercury Island, and sailed for the Kermadec Islands. The Moa was at Curtis Island when the cable steamer lrifc>, now the Hecorder, which had been sent from Auckland, came up and after a shot was fired \on Luckner surrendered. At the conclusion of the war Von Luckner and his companions were sent back to then own country.