NO TRACE FOUND

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22622, 27 April 1948, Page 5

NO TRACE FOUND

MISSING SECRETARY POLICE COMB BEACHES (P.A.) AUCKLAND, April 27. Police inquiries are still being made for Mr. Walter Ashton, a former secretary of the Auckland Trades Council and a member of the Auckland district committee of the Communist Party, who has been missing from his home since last Friday. His motor-car was found near the end of the short beach at Piha on Sunday but intensive searches of the area for the missing man which have been made by police parties and local residents since then have so far been without result. Special attention was paid to beaches in the area yesterday by a party of local residents searching under the direction of a constable, but no trace was found of Mr. Ashton. A further search will be made ioday. Among the articles in his car were a quantity of Communist literature, a detective story magazine, a book “Flowers in the Dust" and Mr. Ashton's diary in which there are no recent entries. Mr. E. E. Philipson. who lives at Blowhole Bay, told the police that while he was walking to Piha early on Friday afternoon he saw a man climbing the tracks to the rocks at Dawson's Ledge. Later he saw a man on the rocks and wondered why he was there. It was blowing and raining hard at tnf time. was poor. -