MR AMERY HID IN STERN OF BOAT AND ESCAPED.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19033, 31 March 1930, Page 1

MR AMERY HID IN STERN OF BOAT AND ESCAPED.

TELLS HOW HE AVOIDED CAPTURE BY GERMANS.

(United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) LONDON, March 29. Mr L. C. M. S. Amery, formerly Colonial Secretary, told a reunion of members of the Salonika League how he eluded capture after the Germans torpedoed the liner Caledonia on which

he was returning from Salonika. Mr Amery v sought safety in a small boat, from which he saw the ship sink. On the approach of the submarine he craw'led into a little three-cornered space in the stern of the boat. The Germans took General Ravenshaw and several officers, but missed him.

Mr Amery, who visited New Zealand a few years ago, has had an adventurous career quite apart from politics. During the South African war he represented ‘‘The Times,” where he obtained much first-hand knowledge. His love of mountaineering took him all over Europe giving him a special knowledge which, combined with his aptitude for languages, carried him to Salonika and the Near East on special service during the war. In 1914 and 1915, as a captain, Mr Amery served with the Warwickshire Regiment in France, but later went to Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece, before those countries came into the war. When Mr Lloyd George’s Government came into power, Major Amery, as he was then, was sent for and it was on the trip home on that occasion that the incident with the submarine occurred. Later he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and appointed Political Secretary to the British Section of the Allied War Council.