"HOME GUARD MEMBERS. CONTACT WITH POWER LINES. Two members of the home Guard were killed on Monday afternoon whilst erecting a telephone wire at Wharehine, about eight miles from Wellsford. They were – Mr. John Pavlovich, single, aged 54 of Te Arai. Mr. William Albert Parkes, single aged 22 of Snell Street, Warkworth.

A group of Home Guardsmen under the direction of the Post and Telegraph Department faults team, was erecting the telephone wire beneath a span of the Waitemata Electric Power Board‘s 11.000 volt high-tension line. The telephone wire was held by a binder almost directly beneath the high-tension line. When the telephone line was strained the binder broke and the wire made contact with the power line. The two men who had been pulling on the line were killed instantly.

The manager of the Power Board Mr A. Main said yesterday that the board’s high-tension line had been erected in accordance with the regulations and there was adequate clearance between it and the wire being erected." New Zealand Herald 8th. December 1942

CWGC list his grave as Warkworth Presbyterian public cemetery AWMM