Persistent Report About Count von Luckner

British Hunt For Pacific Raiders

APIA, March 2.

THE latest information which has fil tered through here is that our old acquaintance, Count Felix von Luckner, actually is in command of a German raider operating in the Indian Ocean.

Said To Be Commander Of

Raiders

The special correspondent of the Lon don “News-Chronicle” in Manila reported about March 20 that he had learned from a reliable source that Count von Luckner is commanding Germany’s Pacific raiders from the Norwegian auxiliary cruiser “Glengarry” (7,100 tons), which von Luckner seized during the invasion of Norway.

British ships and planes have taken up a widespread hunt in the Pacific, said the correspondent, and are now counter attacking. The Germans are using modern Norddeutscher Lloyd and Ham burg-Amerika ships, armour-plated, heav ily gunned, and capable of from 18 to 22 knots.

Previously the Nazis successfully used two Dorniers for scouting and guarding their ships. Britain’s counter weapon is now long-range patrol bombers.

On February 14, Mr. Lowell Thomas, the traveller and author, reported having received in New York a letter from Count

von Luckner, written from Halle, Ger many, in which von Luckner remarked: "I spend most of my time hunting in the Harz mountains and living in a log cabin, almost cut off from the world”.

The “PIM”, a few months ago, re printed a newspaper report which had received prominence in American papers, that Count von Luckner, owing to his anti-Nazi views, had been placed in a concentration camp in Germany.

Raiders In The Pacific

THERE have been frequent, persistent reports that German and Italian vessels, which are being fitted out in Far East ports as commerce-raiders, or which are trying to escape from Japanese ports to the open sea. away from the British blockade, are being as sisted by Japanese naval authorities.

It was confidently stated, about the end of March, by one section of newspapers, that Japan was planning to transfer cer tain Japanese warships from Japan to Germany; that German crews would come across Siberia and man the vessels in Japanese ports; and that the vessels would be used against British shipping in the Pacific.

A New York newspaper, on March 30, said that under the “Lease-and-Lend”

Act the warships of the Australian, New Zealand and Netherlands East Indies navies, which were convoying merchant ships across the Pacific, were now free to make use of the American naval dock yards in Honolulu, and that the Dutch Ensign and the Union Jack would soon be as familiar in Hawaii as the Stars and Stripes.

It was reported, about the middle of March, that the British freighter “Spey bank”, of 5.154 tons, which was on her way from the Par East to New York, via Panama Canal, with a cargo of rub ber, tin, hemp, and sugar worth about £200,000, was sunk by an enemy raider.

It is impossible to give any details; but it can be said definitely that Britain’s dispositions in the Pacific are now such as to prevent any large-scale enemy

raiding, as in 1940. Any raids now will be hit-and-run affairs —and the running will have to be swift, if the Hun con cerned hopes to escape.

Mr. R. D. Blandy, British Resident Commissioner in the New Hebrides, who has been on short furlough in Australia, sailed from Sydney for Vila, during the month.

Mr, A. S. Young, well-known travelling representative for Sargood, Gardiner Ltd., Islands merchants, of Sydney, is now in Papua and New Guinea on one of his regular business trips. He will re turn to Sydney in April.