There was one figure in the war who received but little publicity a year or so ago--and this was despite the fact that he had the whole Allied forces on the lookout for his mystery ship during the early months of 1917. Count von Luckner remains one of the romantic figures of the war. Though he sank nearly a score of Allied ships, and, what is more remarkable still, though he killed not one man during the course of these sinkings, it remained for his biography by Lowell Thomas to interest the public in his remarkable story.

Here was a German who, far from being the ogre that war propaganda would have us believe, was a sportsman and a gentleman. He took a sporting chance to get through the blockade, and once through it he justified the chance. Not a ship did he destroy without first removing the crew and offering them the very good hospitality of his own vessel. It would be gratifying if the same praise might be said of the hospitality of his subsequent captors. His deeds of daring rival the tales of days before mud and trenches, and cast a much needed glow of romance on the dismal panorama of a sordid war.