Commander of the German raider "Seeadler" (origionally the fully rigged sailing ship, the Pass of Balmaha), Count Von Luckner had been responsible for the sinking of 14 merchant ships in the South Atlantic Ocean which were carrying food and supplies.
Persued by the British Navy into the Pacific Ocean, misfortune struck the Seeadler when she ran into a violent storm which eventually cast her ashore on the reef at Mopelia Island in the Society Group. Manning the boats, Von Luckner and some of his men made the long sea voyage down to the Fiji Group, occupied by Australian and New Zealand Forces, where they were captured as prisoners of war.
34. The wreck of the steamer AEON
by Anthony G. Flude ©2004
Bound for Australia and New Zealand, the ill-fated Australian owned steamer AEON, steamed towards a long line of white breakers at 9.30pm on that dark and stormy night of the 18th July, 1908.
The engines were quickly reversed but to no avail. A strong onshore current swept them inwards and just four minutes later, the AEON slid smoothly, with hardly a sound, onto the coral rocks of Christmas Island.
35. MUTINY aboard the VENUS
by Anthony G. Flude © 2003
The story of the capture of the Australian brigantine 'VENUS' by a mutinous crew and four convicts who escaped to New Zealand in the year 1806.
Bound for Hobart under escort, the convicts, two men and two women, one with a young child, took command of the vessel in Port Dalrymple, on the north coast of Tasmania and sailed across the Tasman Sea to seek refuge in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand among the Maori people living there.