CAMP ESCAPEES

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1848, 4 July 1918, Page 3

CAMP ESCAPEES

Further particulars to hand show that the recapture of the Larkin brothers, who escaped from detention in Trentham Camp some six months ago, was the result of a very carefully organised expedition in which the civil police and the military were associated. The preparations were made with the utmost secrecy, and no one suspected that the party of twenty-five mounted men leaving Featherston Camp were out for anything more than manoeuvres. Beyond the camp the mounted men were joined by a party of ten civil police under Sergeant O’Hara, of Wellington, and Constable M’Leod, of Featherston. Motor cars were used to convey the parties to within a few miles of their suspected quarry. There the men were divided into two parties. Constable M’Leod and his men travelled over broken country to a small scrub-cutting camp, and in . the early hours of the morning surprised the Larkins and two other men asleep in their tent. The Larkins denied thefr identity, and produced papers purporting to support their statements, but the police refused to be hoodwinked. The other two men produced papers establishing their identity satisfactorily. The Larkins were afterwards taken to Featherston, and subsequently to Trentham. The second party, under Sergeant O’Hara, raided another camp, but mil the occupants were able to satisfy the police that they were not avoiding military service.