CASEMENT’S “MYSTERY SHIP.”

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16456, 18 June 1921, Page 4

CASEMENT’S “MYSTERY SHIP.”

ITS COMMANDER TELLS HIS STORY. Karl Spindler.—German naval officer, aged thirty, complexion ireeh, hair dark, eyes blue, stout built, height sft 11 in. clean shaven, speaks good English, dress probably civilianSuch was the description (posted after his escape from Donington Hall) of an enemy of great pluck and ingenuity, whose account of his war services appears to-day in an English dress under the title, “Gun Running for Casement.” Lieutenant Spindler was the commander of the famous ‘• mystery ship.” the Libau, entrusted with the duty of landing munitions on the Irish coast to support Casement’s projected rising in 1915. The exciting hook he has made out of his adventures proves that truth is sometimes very like fiction. His plans wese certainly laid for him with wonderful elaboration. The tale of the painstaking transformation of the Libau, while lying in Lubeck Harbour. into “ the Norwegian tramp And” recalls the camouflage practised by Mr Pycroft in one of Kipling’s bestknown sea stories in almost eveiy respect nave the humour. In fact, German thoroughness may have gone too far to bo convincing. When wo read that (as an item of emergency drill) one of the stokers had the task of “ sitting,” with tho greatest attainable abandon, on the fore-hatch. lazily smoking his pipe and teasing the dog till it barked furiously,” whilo others practised “ spitting with seamanlike skill to tho four quarters of the heavens,” we wonder whether it oil looked as spontaneous as it should “ from the front.”

The author seems satisfied that it did, for he passed “ right through the blockade with suspicious ease, encountering more than one patrol that did nothing, he says, to stop him. He also met a hurricane off the Rockalls, which put, his seamanship to the test, and provides some of the best reading in the book. He reached Tralee Bay (according to plan), but Casement, who was to he on board from a submarine, was not at the rendezvous. The pilot-boot with a man wearing a green jersey (the signal agreed upon) was nowhere in sight. The And steamed up to lfenit, and all round the upper part of the bay, but there was no sign from the land. Tho Gormans waited the night, but the next morning failed to escape, as they hoped, though (according to the author’s strange story) they quite bluffed tho outpost boat. They were, however, surrounded after leaving the bay, and brought along to Queenstown by a field ia that annoyingly declined to send a prize crew on board to be dealt with according to a long devised plan of great cunning. At the entrance to Queenstown, Lieutenant Spindler (who seems at no point to have lacked oool-ne:-c or courage) managed to carry out his intention of sinking his ship, with her cargo of munitions, and went on board the Bluebell from a boat under the white flag. So ended tho “ gunrunning for Casement.”

Lieutenant Spindler, however, was tho last man io eit down tamely in captivity. As soon as Lie reached Doningtop. Hall he began to scheme escape, and, after several fruitless attempts, conceived the audacious plan of stealing a plane from an aerodrome supposed to be in the neighbourhood, and flying home. Together with a fellow-prisoner who belonged to the Air Service lie got away from the camp by the aid of a newly dug drain to a tennis court. But tlie aerodrome they were making for had been closed a lew weeks earlier, and in Nottingham the prisoners were retaken.

Ho»v were they detected ? ‘ f learned that (a detective) had watched up for a long time without noticing our identity with tho wanted men. then he suddenly remarked that whenever we chanced to get out of stop we quite mechanically regained step and he said to himself, “These are certainly two German officers.” After all that elaborate training in nonchalance, too ! Luckily for Lientenaiiu Spindler,, the penalties for attempted escape had just been made milder bv international agreement, and in duo time he was exchanged. His conntrv certamly owed him recognition