SEXTANT MADE AT MOTUIKI

Southland Times, Issue 23141, 6 March 1937, Page 3

SEXTANT MADE AT MOTUIKI

ASSOCIATES WITH VON LUCKNER (United Press Association) WELLINGTON, March 4. A suggestion is made by Mr Harold Gatty, of the Pan-Pacific Airways, that New Zealand might make a friendly and graceful gesture to a one-time enemy by returning to its maker what is known as the von Luckner sextant, which is at the Dominion Museum. He says the sextant was not made by von Luckner, from whose own accounts and from the inscribed initials W.V.Z. on the sextant it was clear the maker was a cadet, W. von Zardowsky, one of several merchant cadets whose ship was interned at Pago Pago on the outbreak of the war or immediately afterwards. They somehow managed to join up with von Luckner and were interned with him at Motuihi. On the pretext that they wished to continue their studies in navigation the boys sent to Pago Pago for their sextants and they came to hand, but the censor had other ideas and the boys did not get them. So Zardowsky set to work to make one. Mr Gatty is greatly impressed with the high craftsmanship of this lad of 15 or 16 years of age under conditions that must have been most difficult. If the lad himself is not still alive Mr Gatty suggests that his relations would be delighted to have this sextant which, at the best, is only a war relic to New Zealand.