Skegness Magazine

AMERICAN WIFE KILLED
Crash near Gunby Corner
THROWN FROM CAR DECAPITATED

THE wife of an American Air Force officer, stationed at East Kirkby and living at Skegness, was killed in a car accident near Spilsby on Thursday.
She was Mrs. Joan M. Waynick, wife of Capt. James H. Waynick, of Old Burgh Road, Skegness.

Until recently they had been living at the Golf Hotel, Woodhall Spa, and they were due to return to America in a few weeks’ time.

Capt. Waynick was driving his 1955 American Chevrolet car from Gunby Corner towards Spilsby at about 11.30 a.m., with his wife as passenger, when for some reason, between Gunby Lane end and Candlesby village, the car left the road and ran into the dyke on its nearside of the road.

THROWN OUT
Mrs. Waynick was thrown out of the car and killed instantly, being completely decapitated. Apart from a knock on the head, Capt. Waynick was uninjured, and although he was taken to Spilsby Hospital he was not detained.
It is understood that no-one saw the accident, but the damage was practically all to the offside—which in American cars is the passenger side—it is believed that when the car left the road it spun round, entered the dyke and ploughed along it for a short distance backwards, and then twisted round out of the dyke and came to rest, partly on the road and party on the grass verge, facing the direction in which it had been travelling.
Under the terms of the Visiting Forces Act, 1952, no inquest is to be held.

OF BRITISH BIRTH
Mrs. Waynick, who was aged about 33, was of British birth but was an American citizen. Capt. Waynick comes from the state of Georgia and there are three young children of the marriage, who are living with Capt. Waynick’s parents in Georgia.
Capt. Waynick is a weather officer in the U.S.A.F. and. has been in this country for about three years. For the past five months he has been attached to the weather squadron at East Kirkby. He and his wife had been living in Skegness for only three weeks.

1958 local news story