Two Youths Die In Charles River

Two nine-year-old boys fell through thin ice on the Charles River and drowned yesterday afternoon. The double fatality was the first of its kind this winter in the Cambridge area.

Gary Williams and Kevin Brady, both of Allston, were about halfway across the river opposite Howard Johnson's Restaurant on Soldiers Field Road when the ice caved in under them. Two playmates, terrified by the accident, managed to get off the ice and then quickly left the scene.

A passing motorist, Frank Smith, of Oxford, made an unsuccessful attempt to rescue the boys as a crowd of 3000 gathered. Metropolitan Police officers recovered one of the bodies, but the services of skin divers were required to bring up the other.