KILLED INSTANTLY

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20129, 26 December 1939, Page 4

KILLED INSTANTLY

TWO MOTOR-CYCLISTS BIBLE CLASS CAMPERS COLLISION WITH CAR HOWICK ACCIDENT (Per Press Association.) AUCKLAND, this day. Two young men were killed instantly when the motor-cycle they were riding up Mellon’s Hill, on the Howick highway, about two miles north of Pakuranga, yesterday morning collided with a five-seater sedan car, none of the occupants of which was seriously injured. The motor-cycle was a twisted wreck. Substantial damage was done to the front of the car and there was a jagged hole about Ift. in diameter in the windscreen, against which had struck the head of the motor-cycle driver. The v'ictims were:— KILLED John Eastwood, aged 23, labourer, of Newton. John A. Wallace, aged 24, gardener, of Opawa. Christchurch. The car was being driven from the city to Buckland’s Beach by William Walmsley, with whom were his wife, Mr. and Mrs. J. Birehall, and their five-year-old son. all of the same address. It is believed that the motor-cycle was ridden by Mr. Eastwood, and that the pillion rider was Mr. Wallace, both of whom were staying at a Bible class camp at Buckland’s Beach. They had left the camp not long before and were going towards the city. Violent Impact A young man who lives about 200yds from where the two machines collided said he heard the sound of a violent impact, and when he looked in the direction from which the noise came he saw what appeared to be a cloud of blue smoke as though something were on fire. He hurried over the brow of the hill and saw the motor car with its off-side front wheel devoid of its tyre and the rim against the bank at the right-hand side of the highway and a little to the rear of the bodies of the two young men. One had been flung about 15ft. from the point of impact, and the other several feet from where their machine lay on its side against the bank. Both were dead. Parts of the motor-cycle were strewn among the grass at the verge and broken glass from the headlights of the car was scattered on the concrete road.

The driver of the car, Mr. Walmsley, suffered a cut on his right arm, and his wife, who was seated immediately behind him, received extensive cuts about the face. Beyond differing degrees of shock, the others appeared to have escaped physical injury.