“A GREAT SPORT”

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 462, 2 July 1937, Page 2

“A GREAT SPORT”

COUNT VON LUCKNER New Zealand Visit “Count von Luckner is not coming here to spread- Nazi propaganda, 1 clan assure you that,” £.aid Captain It. Koehler, marine superintendent at Sydney for 'the Hamburg Amerika Line, recently. Captain Koebiirg is in New Zealand for the first time in connection with the visit of the German steamer Gera which arrived in Auckland from Golf of Mexico ports , on Wednesday. “He is oi 'fine fellow and a great sport,” added the* captain, who was aboard thg German raider Moewe. which prowled about the Atlantic during the Great WU.r for two years, and for three or four months the Count was the lieutenant commander. The Moewe, he said, was a .fruit steamer before the war and with the development of hostilities she wus fitted with gun bedding and made many ■short depredatory voyages into the Atlantic from Kiel. The Moewe sent considerably more shipping to the boKitoni than did the Seadier, Count von Luckner’s later command, hiave seen lots of British fruit ships like tha't in the Carribegn Sea. They are fast and handy and they fly the blue ensign. They -are not lifted with guns, but they are ready for instan’t notice. I can quite uni dertland that they would be useful as light auxiliary cruisers.” Captain Koehler, who was a lieutenant under the Count, recalled 'that von Luckner had particularly strong fingers and could bend coins in them. “He used to take an iron tenpfennig piece like tho.lt,’ he said, grasping a six-pence between two “and bend it —so. We thought there was a trick in it, and all the officers crowded round to see him do Ft again. He did. I tell you, he was a great sport. He was not like some of the older naval officers —very hard —he was a fine comman d.r. “Now perhaps you can tell me something. Why doesn’t Britain give us back some of our colonies. Some of the arguments I have seen in Australia have been very amusing. We are not so much concerned with Samoa and New Guinea -as with Africa. We want somewhere to tend our overflow population, so they can grow raw materials <and settle down in business. And, another 'thing, Africa is much nearer home.”