GIRL WHO WAITED.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 159, 7 June 1937, Page 7

GIRL WHO WAITED.

GERMAN, AIRMAN IN SPAIN. A brown-eyed girl at Mahno, Sweden, has been awaiting anxiously news of the fate of a man in Spain whom ■she has never met. She is Miss Ulla Kroon, daughter of a wealthy citizen, and the man is Hans 'Wandel, 23-year-old German ‘aviator, sentenced to death at Bilbao hut later exchanged. Six years ago they began a correspondence which developed into a close friendship, and this summer they had planned to meet. Then AA andel was transferred from Berlin to an Alpine station, where he became commander of a squadron of the German Air Force.’: - . Miss Kroon heard no more of him until London friends told her he had heen shot down by the Basques and captured while fighting for Franco’s rebels. Then the newspapers announced that lie had heen sentenced to death for "murder and rebellion.” She had not worried over the mention of girls’ names in Wandel’s diaries found on him at his capture. These, she supposed, were pet names for aeronlanes he had flown, or sonm sort of code. “Now death, war and bombs have thrust their uglv faces between us.” she exclaimed. “AA’e were looking forward to our meeting, .and now this! .....’-I cannot tell you how terribly upset I am.” Then came relief with the news that he was being shipped to France for freedom with two other captured German aviators in exchange for a number of foreigners captured by the rebels while fighting for the Loyalists.