GERMAN PIRACY DRAMA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18234, 30 October 1922, Page 7

GERMAN PIRACY DRAMA

CONVICTS SEIZE SCHOONER.

CAPTURED AFTER WRECK. Times. LONDON. Oct. 27.

A thrilling sea drama was enacted in the motor schooner Bertha, which pliea fiom Hamburg to Sweden. When lying at Cuxhaven awaiting the tide she was stormed by four pirates from a boat). They scrambled aboard, shot and wounded the captain, drove the jtrew into the hold, and) took possession of the ship. They locked the captain in the cabin at the point of the revolver, and ordered one of the crew to navigate the vessel to Denmark. The piraites then ransacked the ship, dressed themselves in the seamen's clothes, and stole all the money and valuables in the ship. The voyage lasted all night long, but , the steersman lost himself, and instead of sailing to the north he went west. Daybreak found the ship aground at the mouth of the Jahdle River, where she sprang a leak and began to sink. The captain broke out of the cabin, lowered a boat and "released the crew. All put off, leaving the pirates clinging; to the masts as the Bertha foundered.

The pirates were still above water, fired revolvers at the boat, which reached Vosslapp lighthouse, where the captain received medical attention. Meanwhile steamer sighted the pirates, mistook them for shipwrecked mariners, and rescued them, and as it passed the lighthouse notified the rescue.

The keeper replied, telling tbo skipper | that he had rescued pirates. The keeper i aloo warned the naval authorities, una a torpedo boat appeared, took the pirates prisoner, and landed them at Wilhelms-, haven, where infuriated seamen attempted to lynch them. t The pirates were identified as convicts escaped from Hamburg gaol.