ENTRY REFUSED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23010, 11 April 1938, Page 13

ENTRY REFUSED

COUNT VON LUCKNEB FORT AT RI PA 'ISLAND DISAPPOINTMENT EXPRESSED "OFFICER WITHOUT A SOUL" [by telegraph—press association] CHRISTCHTTRCH, Sunday Count von Lnckner was refused permission by, authorities today to visit Rip a Island, where he "was imprisoned for 119 days during the war. He said this evening that he was keenly disappointed at the refusal, and intended to send a telegram to the Minister of Defence, Hon. F. Jones, asking permission to make the visit.

"I know I will get it," he said. "I was very disappointed indeed. I had no wish to see the fort. I merely wished to revisit, and show mv wife, the cabin where I spent 119 weary days during the war. I will never be coming here again, and this is the only opportunity I shall have to see my old cell. I was not going to look at the fortifications, and at any rate I know every inch and every stone of the island."

Von Luckner laughingly remarked that, as for the fort, Kitchener had said it should be put in a museum. He could not see any reason why he had been refused permission. He had been able to visit Motuihi Island, Auckland, where he was also imprisoned, and had been pleased to find his cell kept exactly as it was when he was there. The count said he had met all the men who formed his guard when he was at Ripa Island, and they and all the people he saw shared his disappointment that he could not visit his old prison. "I am afraid the officer in charge who refused me permission has no soul," he said. "He would not take the responsibility, but I do not "Rant it t®

be thought that I am growling. Thai is not the New Zealand spirit, and I regard myself as having belonged to New Zealand, but I am very disappointed. I think the refusal very foolish." Colonel P. H. Bell, officer commanding the Southern Military Command, said to-night that instructions issued by military headquarters stated that no civilian should be allowed to land at Ripa Island, and in refusing permission he simply carried out these instructions. The instructions-did not apply to islands at Auckland, which were not a military area.