ESCAPED GERMAN

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 231, 30 October 1940, Page 7

ESCAPED GERMAN

FOUR DAYS OF LIBERTY ■ RECOGNISED BY ESCORTED PRISONER A German who escaped from an internment camp was recaptured after four days' liberlj', being recognised in remarkable circumstances. Civil and military police had sought the internee, Siegrkl Qarl Kast, 25, vainly until lie boarded a train at Sliepparton (Victoria) for Melbourne, He entered a carriage and sat beside a plain-clothes constable elfeorting a prisoner. After gazing at the escapee far some time, the prisoner asked the constable for his notebook. He wrote in it ? "That guy opposite looks like the escaped German you are after," and handed it back. The constable questioned Kast, who denied in broken English that he was the missing German. When the train made its next stop, a military policeman who had previously acted as escort to Kast failed., to recognise him. The constable then searched the train to see if anybody had a photograph of Kast. He found the conductor had one. He asked , Kast to take, his hat off, and Ivast said: "I give in, that's me."' Ivast said he had had nothing to cat for two days because of the suspense of knowing that lie f. as being hunted. His hands were rough and torn. He said this was caused when lie wrenched a bolt off the prison door the night lie escaped.