Count von Luckner at Scene of His Escape

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 47, 25 February 1938, Page 7

Count von Luckner at Scene of His Escape

TWENTY YEARS AFTER Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, Last Night. 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 on Motuhihi Island, and, laughing repeatedly, pointed out the path of his escape from the island in the launch Pearl while a prisoner of war twenty 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 Habour 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, anJ always with his wife on his arm. On the wall of his old room he wrote: "My old room 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 camp community of the Sunshine Association.