ESCAPED GERMAN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24432, 18 October 1940, Page 8

ESCAPED GERMAN

FOUR DAYS OF LIBERTY escorted PRISONER (From Our Own Correspondent:) SYDNEY, Oct. 5. A German who escaped from an internment camp was recaptured alter four days’ liberty, being recognised in remarkable circumstances. Civil and military police had vainly sought the internee. Stegrid Carl Hast aged 23. until he boarded a train at Shepparton (Victoria) for Melbourne. He entered a carriage and sat beside a plain clothes constable escorting a prisoner. , , ~ After gazing at the escaped Geimtm for some time, the prisoner asked the constable for his notebook. He wrote in it. “That guy opposite looks like the escaped German vou are after.” and handed it back. . , The constable questioned Kast. Who denied in broken English that he was the missing German. When the train made its next stop, a military policeman who hod previously acted as escort to Kast failed to recognise him The constable then searched the train to see if anybody had a photograph of Kast. He found that the conductor had one. He asked Kast to take his hat off, and Kast said: “ I give in that’s me."

Kast said he liad had nothing to eat for two days because of the suspense of knowing that he was being hunted His hands were rough and torn. He said this was caused when he wrenched a bolt off the prison door the night he escaped.