INTERNED GERMANS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 November 1941, Page 7

INTERNED GERMANS

THREE ESCAPE FROM SOMES ISLAND STOLEN DINGHY FOUND AT PETONE. EXTENSIVE POLICE HUNT ORGANISED. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. Three Germans have escaped rrom Somes Island internment station. A widespread manhunt is now in progress to recapture them. They got away in a dinghy belonging to the Agricultural Department, which retains a caretaker on the island, and used improvised oars which had apparently been prepared and secreted beforehand in preparation for the escape.

The oars belonging to the dinghy were still safely under lock and key when the escape was discovered. The missing internees are:— Hans Finke, journalist, born about 1911; sft 7in tall, dark complexion, brown hair, blue eyes, thick lips, pointed chin. Carl Oscar Schroeder, seaman, born about 1918; 6ft lin tall, fresh face, fair to reddish complexion, fair hair, blue eyes.

Frederick Georg Theodor Strewe, cheesemaker, aged 30, 6ft lin tall, fair complexion, fair hair, blue eyes. Finke has a scar on his right forearm and may be wearing grey or blue clothes. Schroeder is understood to be tattooed on both arms. Schroeder and Strewe lived in Auckland before -they were interned, and Strewe’s wife is living there. Finke is known all over New Zealand. He is a single man and have moved about a good deal.

ESCAPE WELL PLANNED. The internees were locked in their compounds as usual at 9 p.m. on Wednesday. When the roll was called at 10 p.m. the names of the men now at large were answered to. The compounds of all sections of internees are surrounded by barbed wire fences eight feet high, the only unwired sections being the high, locked and barred gates. The men are understood not to be dangerous and their escape not to be an attempt to get free to wreak damage but merely to enjoy what liberty they can. Wednesday night was particularly dark and would have assisted their escape.

There is evidence of the most careful planning. The island is under constant patrol and lookout and doubtless by some means or other the movements of the guards must have been closely studied by the escapees. All three have been on the island several months. They speak English well and are dressed in ordinary clothes. It is probable that they have money. It is thought they may try to pass themselves off as Scandinavians..

The fact of a seaman being included in the party would indicate that nothing was being left to chance in the escape journey across the harbour. The dinghy in which they escaped was found on the beach near the Petone woollen mills yesterday and the improvised oars a short distance away. One of the escapees is a German Jew. The compounds are under constant guard and the possibility cannot be overlooked that the men were actually at liberty somewhere on the island before the compounds were locked and that their names were answered at roll call by other internees. BELATED DISCOVERY. During the afternoons internees are allowed a good deal of liberty and there would be ample opportunity for men to plan out their moves. Guards move round the island throughout the night and their duty posts arc connected with each other and the commandant’s quarters by telephone. The men were first missed at reveille yesterday; approximately 6 a.m. Had it been known that they were in the harbour the previous night or early morning, searchlights could have been trained on the whole harbour area and would have revealed any boat or even swimmers.

With improvised oars, the trip from the island to where the dinghy was found would have taken an hour to an hour and a half. If the men were not missed till yesterday morning and they made the shore at Petone about midnight on Wednesday, there would have been ample time for them to communicate with friends or accomplices, if they had any, and be assisted on their way out of Wellington.

Specially-selected police officers, including those with a knowledge of aliens, are engaged in an extensive search in the Wellington district. Police officers elsewhere, in possession of full descriptions of the men, are also on the lookout.

No small craft are missing from Wellington harbour and the possibility of the men having put out to sea in a stolen craft has been disposed of, thus concentrating the search to land. Where the men may have got to depends largely on what assistance, if any, they were able to get' when they made the shore at Petone.