MAORI WAR VETERANS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 126, 18 November 1911, Page 5

MAORI WAR VETERANS.

SET OUT TO VJKW PI.AC- OF FORMER GLORY. AND MEET WITH A SERIOUS ACCIDENT. By Telegraph—Press Association. Wanganui, Last Night. Sunday last was the forty-third anniversary of the fight at Weraroa, where the well-known redoubt of that name was successfully defended by the "Weraroa Boys" against a determined attack by a large body of Maoris. A number of survivors determined to celebrate the occasion by a reunion at the 'Spot where the redoubt .stood. Ten veterans started out from Wanganui this morning for the scene of the now historic engagement. There were three motor cars, and all went well till after passing Kai Iwi, when the leading car, which was a considerable distance ahead of the others, crashed twenty feet over the bank on the side of the road, carrying the driver and three occupants to what at one moment looked like certain death. Those in the car were Richard Tingey (Wellington), J. Northover (Marton), and E. McCalloch (Wanganui), and the chaffeur. Northover was thrown clear, but the car capsized on the others. Northover ran back and gave the alarm, and when the wrecked car was lifted sufficiently tin: imprisoned men were released. It was found that Tingey had a rib broken and that the other three were seriously bruised and shaken. Their escape from death is regarded as marvellous. The irony of the affair is that the "Wereroa Boys" to-day sustained more casualties than they did at gariison forty-three years ago.