How Von Luckner Was

Captured

A Daring War Incident in the Pacific

ONE of the most daring adventures of the Great War was recalled vividly the other day by the presence in Sydney of one of the actors in the final scenes of a sea drama, wrote “Look Out” in the Sunday Sun of April 5.

He was Mr. W. Foster, chief engineer of the cable steamer Recorder, which dropped into Walsh Bay from Fremantle, W.A., to wind cable before searching 200 miles out in the Tasman for a faulty cable. Mr.

Foster was present on the same steamer when von Luckner was captured behind Macauley Island in the Kermadec Group at the end of 1917.

Von Luckner in the Seeadler set out on a raiding expedition and had destroyed over £5,000,000 of Allied shipping in the Pacific Islands before his vessel was wrecked on an atoll in the Society Group when trapped by a tidal wave. Von Luck ner with his lieutenant, Kircheiss, and a number of men escaped in a launch and they were captured by the small steamer Amra at Wakaya Island, near Levuka, in the Fiji Group.

Von Luckner and his party were in terned in New Zealand, but they escaped in the prison commandant’s launch and captured the scow Moa. A frantic chase in Hauraki Gulf followed.

“The Recorder was called the Iris in those days,” said Mr. Foster. “I was the fourth engineer. The Iris was in dock at Auckland, undergoing overhaul, at the

time of the escape. She had been fitted out as an auxiliary cruiser with two three-inch guns. As soon as the news came through, the Iris was hastily manned and des patched to search for the Moa.

“After von Luckner had been at large for a week, we arrived in the Fiji Group and could find no sign of our quarry. We began cruising around and after 24 hours we sighted the Moa behind Macauley Island, in the Kermadecs. The scow began to make away and we signalled her to stop. She paid no attention to the signals, however, and a shot was fired across her bows. That brought the Moa around.

“Von Luckner and Kircheiss came across to us in a boat. I was the only member of the crew to have a camera, and I secured some fine pictures. One of my photographs showing von Luckner being searched on the deck of the Iris for arms was published in Lowell Thomas’s book, ‘The Sea Devil.’ ’’

Mr. J. P. Blaikie Webster, chairman of directors of New Guinea Goldfields Ltd., left Brisbane by the Montoro for New Guinea at the end of March. He was ac companied by Mr. T. P. McCulloch, who is also a director of N.G.G. Ltd. After visiting the Morobe goldfields, Mr. Blaikie Webster joined the Neptuna at Salamaua and proceeded to England, via the East.