RIPA ISLAND

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 93, 12 January 1918, Page 7

RIPA ISLAND

THE NEW INTERNMENT CAMP.

An impression exists in some quarters that because Ripa Island, the new internment camp in Lyttelton Harbour, is small and close to the mainland, it is a place from which escape would bo easy. Correspondents who have visited the island .point out that tbo channel between the island and the mainland is very narrow, and would bo crossed easily by venturesome in on.

The official view is that the itland will make a very secure place of cictcntion. The island is a fortress, constructed in days long past, but still formidable from the standpoint of a prisoner detained there. It has underground galleries and chambers, and certain buildings that liavo already been found to bo effective piaccs of detention. The prisoner who crossed the channel would have to do so under the rifle of a sentry, and if lie mado the crossing safely, he would find himself on an exposed hillside with a mile or more to travel under the rifles of tbo guard.

The other side of the harbour, on a level higher than Ripa Island, was fortified very many years ago, and tho .whole of the island lies-under observation. The prisoner who made good his,escape from the island would find himself on Banks.Peninsula, with Very small chance indeed .either of getting any sort of boat or of escaping to tbo plains. People who aro alarmed lest the Germans, may escape from Ripa Island may rest assured that every point has been very carefully considered.'

COMMANDANT APPOINTED. By Telegraph—Press Association. Christchurch, January 11. Captain C. ■V. Leeming, M.C., a Main Body man, has (Teen appointed commandant of the internment camp at Ilipa Island, where von Luckner and Kirscheiss are to be confined, 'i'lio measures taken for the guarding of tho prisoners, include tho. erection of a stockade and the establishment on the island of an armed guard of sufficient strength to enable the .prisoners to be guarded night and day.