GERMAN METHODS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11505, 29 September 1915, Page 1

GERMAN METHODS.

1 ■■■■' PRIVATE MOTORS BUILT FOR WAR DESIGNED TO GARRY GUNS. That mam- private motor-oars built in Gcrmany'during the past lev/ Years were designed for" mounting of guns and searchlights is vouched tor by Ah Charles 15. Pray, an motor mechanic, who has .arrived m England after eHit months in a German internment camp, j Mr Pray was under contract as aru engineer at a. motor-car works ni Ma~ rienfcld-Zosson, just outside Berlin, and on October 7. under suspicion or being a British subject because ho possessed British money .and letters from England, was interned. From he was transferred to a camp in Wurtemberg, from which he contrived to , escape on the night of May 18. Htf ; has spent the interval in France, and i hopes soon to sail' for America. ' "My work up to the time of my arrest, said Mr Pray, "brought mo into daily contact with the German Mercedes' car. The chassis of every car of the- 18.12, 1913 or 1914 models was perforated at the sides with two sets of four holes each, at equal distances from the front and rear, for the purpose of riveting over the chassis frame a plate heavy enough to bear a weight of 1000 kilograms (22001b). I GUNS MOUNTED ON HUNDREDS OF CARS. "Rapid* fir© guns or machine guns and searchlights have been placed on hundreds upon hundreds of German I Mercedes cars since the wax began. In ! May and June 1914 cars were called i in for inspection—private motor-oars in Germany were always subject to commandeering by the' army—and returned with the plates mentioned duly affixed, without the owners' knowledge of what had been done. When the cars were requisitioned for the war, only the tops bad to be ripped off and guns and searchlights mounted in their places." Mr Pray believes that he was "put out of the way " by the Germans for ' the double purpose of providing them with a passport for spy purposes and also for impressing his expert services into their army motor forces. He declined, however, to do anything while in his captors' hands except "carry water " at the camps. He' has never seen his passport again, nor his money, nor other property, including his tool chest, which were taken from him when arrested. Mr Pray states another American motor workman j named Wigman is still in German captivity, and the United States authori- . ties axe proceeding to secure his release.