SEARCH FOR GRAHAM

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 15 October 1941, Page 5

SEARCH FOR GRAHAM

REPORTED FINDING OF RIFLE ONLY DEVELOPMENT YESTERDAY 1 Hokitika, Oct. 14 ! To day’s development in the search for Stanley Graham was the reported finding in the bush by a party of four searchers of a rifle which has been in the possession of Graham since the original murders. This was a .303 rifle which is owned by a neighbour of Gra ham’s named Bert Cropp. Graham took it from Mr Ridley when Ridley ran to the assistance of four policemen when Graham fired at them. The finding leads to the belief that Graham, through wounds or fatigue, finds he has too heavy an armoury to carry. He still has his Mauser. Graham made no appearance last night or in the early hours of the morning—or no one saw or heard a trace of him if he did. If he comes to-night there will be just as many precautions for the safety of the scores of men near the Graham house all night. Everyone holds a different theory about the whereabouts of Graham and every part of the bush within miles of his home has been visited by patrols which report back to the radio stations. More men went up Mount Camelback to-day but found no trace. Parties are also now much farther afield. If Graham is not found or does not himself come down for one more visit to those ! who are looking for him with so little success, there is a staggering area of bush-clad mountains which will have to be combed. Some people think Gra- | ham may be on Mt. Graham, named i after his family, which was one of ■ the earliest and best known in the dis trict. Few. if any, people outside those j who are associated in any way in the ever-hazardous task of endeavouring to track down the wanted man—or those who have visited the scene or live in the locality—are aware of the detailed organisation and work of the police, settlers, Home Guardsmen, and Territorials that are now reaching complete unity. To-day Post and Telegraph Department linesmen and Army men were busily engaged in elaborately equipping all buildings in a radius of half a mile of the scene of the crimes 1 with temporary lines of inter communi- ! RADIO COMMUNICATION WORK The radio communications work of Army signallers has been remarkably j effective and successful. Such remote, places as Mr Charles Smith’s hut at the foot of Mt. Camelback, which, of course, is now guarded, are at a moment’s notice able to talk to the men at Koiterangi hall or to men in settlers’ homes or all round the district. At night they can talk but not move. Even the pits with the guns are connected nov/ with an intertelephone system. Another Army and police task which demands constant plotting is the working out of angles of fire so that no shooter can possibly have another man in his line of fire. The most nerveracking post is the dugout within three feet or so of the wall of Graham's house. It is well sandbagged. If Graham ever came out in daylight he would not recognise his home, and when the Koiterangi school children go back to school they will not recognise the grounds. At the end of the tennis court is an Army supply hut. Advice to the Hokitika Home Guard that if they went out again at Koiterangi they went as civilian volunteers and that there was no compensatory provision for them in the Home Guard organisation was given by the acting leader of the Guard. Mr Mitchell. It is understood that he was passing on advice received from Dominion headquarters. Mr Mitchell said to-night that it was in fact purely coincidental that Home Guard members were in the , second night’s shooting as members of the Guard. They were all residents of the district and when they went to their Home Guard parade they heard of the tragedy and went along to help, not so much because they were Home Guardsmen but because they were ; residents and had to do what they 1

could. They worked under the direction of the police. Hokitika men went out later to relieve the Koiterangi men. Mr W. Eastgate, who at the time of the tragedy was battalion commander of the Home Guard in Hokitika, did not attend to-night’s meeting and would make no statement on the position.—P.A.