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[Page 89]
[Newspaper cutting with handwritten date – 23/4]
Military Methods.
The Missing German Willms.
Court-Martial Fooled.
A searchlight was thrown yesterday morning upon some of the methods of the military authorities. On April 15 Paul Willms, a prisoner of war, was charged before a court-martial with conduct, whilst confined in Darlinghurst Goal on March 26, to the prejudice of the control of prisoners of war by making undue noise. When the inquiry had reached a certain stage Willms asked for an adjournment until yesterday. In the meantime Willms, along with two other German confinees at Darlinghurst, escaped from custody, and although his two mates were promptly brought back to their place of confinement, Willms has not been recaptured.
With the fact in front of them that the prisoner whose case was to be further heard yesterday was still at large, the members of the court were allowed to assemble. They had not been notified that as there was no ghost there could be no staging of Hamlet. The members of the court, who had work to see to in their own particular departmental spheres, quickly conceived the idea that one of the many telephones installed within the big military quadrangle could have been utilised for the purpose of passing on word that the court was "off," as the prisoner was "unavoidably absent. "
This seems to be the military way of doing things. If the system were to obtain in the civil courts there would be something more heard about it.