Funeral of British flying boats victims at Malta - crash that caused Americkan girls' death leap from aeroplane.

Funeral of British flying boats victims at Malta - crash that caused Americkan girls' death leap from aeroplane. The funeral of the victims of the British flying boat which crashed at Messina, Sicily, with the loss of nine lives, took place with impressive ceremonial at Malta. The bodies were taken from Messina to Malta by H.M.S. Durban. Among those who died in the crash were Flight-Lieutenant H.L. Beatty of the Royal Air Force and Flying Officer John Alexander Charles Forbes of the Royal Air Force, and it now seems that their death was directly responsible for the death of Miss Elizabeth du Bois, aged 23, and Miss Jane du Bois, aged 20, daughters of the United States Consul General at Naples, Mr. Coert du Bois. The girls loaped hand in hand from an aeroplane over Upminster, Essex, England. Elizabeth is reported to have been secretly engaged to Beatty, and Jane was a friend of Forbes. The troops firing the last salute at the graves.