ESCAPPE FROM GERMANY.

Taihape Daily Times, 13 February 1918, Page 7

ESCAPPE FROM GERMANY.

Captain Boy J. I'itegoraW, or th

Gloucester Eeg intent, a sun of lac lata W. C. Fitzgerald, of Wellington, is again in London, after an interlude of a few months ’ imprisonment in Gcr-

many. Captain Fitzgerald is a mining engineer, and before tire war was in Nigeria. Ho got Iris commission in the Gloucester Regiment early in 1915, and since then ho has been more or less continuously at the front. In May of last year his battalion was in action at Frcsnoy, and his name appeared in the casualty list as wounded and missing. A week or two later news came that he was a prisoner of war in Germany. It appears that at the fighting at Frcsnoy Captain Fitzgerald was wounded and rendered unconscious, and when he recovered he was in German hands. He was evacuated to Germany, and sent to hospital at Karlsruhe. There he encountered two other New Zealanders —Lieut. H. D. Hamilton (Nelson), of the Royal Flying Corps, and Sub-Lieut P E. Dearden, the only survivor of H.M.S. Queen Mary. After being discharged Captain Fitzgerald was sent to what is known as a "strafe camp,” where officer prisoners belonging to Allies arc subjected to especially rigorous treatment by way of reprisal for supposed ill-trcatmcnt of German prisoners.

Captain Fitzgerald bad not been long there when he observed possibilities of making his escape, which ho prepared to realise with the co-operation of Lieut. Harding, of the Cheshire Regiment, and R.F,C. The water supply in the camp was not sa?r-factory, and the prisoners were allowed to send orderlies outside the barbed wire to a well. One night at dusk, Captain Fitzgerald and Lieut. Harding, dressed in “Tommy ’ ’ clothes, which they borrowed from the; 'orderlies, presented themselves to'the sentries Kvith buckets to pass. out to the well. They were allowed to pass, but wore carefully watched for a while. As soon, however, as the sentry had reached the end of his

beat, and was turning round, they dropped the buckets and ran, making their escape in the darkness. B'ofore they hoard the alalrm whistle sounded, they were out of earshot of the camp and they made as rapidly as possible to a place of hiding, and lay quiet there until the hue and cry died away. That night they made good a considerable offing from the camp, and thenceforward for seven days and nights they travelled continuously towards the Dutch frontier, Neither of them could speak a word of German, and, moreover, they were dressed in British uniform, so they had necessarily to avoid at any cost encountering either soldiers or civilians. This they were successful in doing, and sustained by what food they had in their pockets and supplemented by any which they could safely get on the way ,they eventually crossed the Diitch frontier. This important stage of their journey was reached in the night, and they wore quite ignorant when they were challenged and fired at in the darkness that they were so near to safety. When morning came they found themselves well within the Dutch frontier, and in a day or two they got a passage across to England.