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Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20668, 5 March 1937, Page 11

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VON LUCKNER’S SEXTANT By Telegraph—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 is clear that the maker was a cadet, W. von Zartowsky, 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 Capt. 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 sextants, and they came to hand but the censor had other Ideas, and the boys did not get them, so von Zardotsky set to work to make one. Mr Gatty is greatly Impressed with the high craftsmanship of this lad of 15 or 16 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.