HISTORIC GERMAN FLAG

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23364, 2 December 1937, Page 6

HISTORIC GERMAN FLAG

PRESENTED TO WAR MUSEUM CAPTURE OF WESTERN SAMOA RECALLED (Special to Daily Times) AUCKLAND, Dec. 1. Another flag is to be added to those which hang in the Hall of Memories at the Auckland War Memorial Museum. It is a German flag and the one that used to fly over Apia Post Office when the town was in German West Samoa. It was the first German flag cut down on land during the war. The flag has come into the hands of the acting-director of the museum, Mr A. W. B. Powell, in a curious roundabout way. For many years it has been in the possession of a woman, formerly of Auckland, who now lives in Blenheim, namely, Mrs Ewena Cate. Feeling that her days are numbered, as her letter puts it, she wants to give it to the museum so that it may hang in the Hall of Memories. She wrote to the Mayor of Auckland (Sir Ernest Davis), expressing this wish and asking what she should do about it. Sir Ernest advised her to communicate with Mr Powell, but she asked the Mayor to forward her original letter. Mr Powell received the letter this morning. This is the story:— One of the first things that the N.Z.E.F. did when it landed in Samoa on August 29, 1914, was to march to Government House to take possession of the flag there. That was the official party. At the same time another party of some 20 men marched to the Post Office and with all due ceremony demanded the postal flag flying there. This flag, so Mrs Cate’s letter said, was cut down about half an hour before the one at Government House. Later, the letter continued, this Post Office flag “ disappeared,” as so many things did during the war. Some 12 months after the incident, Mrs Cate said, the flag came into her possession, being given to her by a New Zealand soldier, who had commandeered it. In accepting it Mrs Cate told the soldier that she would mind it for him and that, realising its historical value, she would return it to him if ever he wanted it. “ Alas,” Mrs Cate added, “my friend never came back, but found a grave * somewhere in France.’ Hence I pass it on for safe custody.” •