Stories from The Luton News: Thursday, March 2nd, 1916.

Lieut-Observer J. E. P. Harvey, an officer of the Bedfordshire Yeomanry attached to the Royal Flying Corps, who was recently captured by the Germans has sent the following description of a battle in mid-air and how he was treated after capture.

"I had had a fight with two German aeroplanes when a shell burst very close to us and I heard a large piece whizz past my head. Then the aeroplane started to come down head first, spinning all the time. We must have dropped about 5,000 feet in about twenty seconds. I looked round at once saw poor ------, with a terrible wound in his head, dead. I then realised that the only chance of saving my life was to step over into his seat and sit on his lap, where I could reach the controls. I managed to get the machine out of the terrible death-plunge, switched off the engine and made a good landing on terra firma.

"I shall never forget it as long as I live. The shock was so great that I could hardly remember a single thing of my former life for two days. Now I am getting better and my mind is practically normal again. We were 10,000 feet up when poor ------ was killed and luckily it was this tremendous height that gave me time to think and to act.

"I met one of the pilots of the German machines that had attacked us. He could speak English well and we shook hands. I had brought down his machine with my with my machine gun and he had had to land quite close to where I landed. He had a bullet through his radiator and petrol tank but neither he nor his observer was touched. I met two German officers who knew several people I knew and they were most awfully kind to me. They gave me a very good dinner of champagne and oysters etc and I was treated like an honoured guest."

• Major Charles Percy Doulton, aged 48, late 4th Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment, who was buried at Stanmore on Monday afternoon died suddenly in the Bute Hospital from heart trouble on Wednesday last week. About the middle of October he came to Luton to be one of the superintendents of the Chaul End munition factory. He won the DSO in South Africa but his old-standing heart condition had made it impossible for him to see active service in the current war.

• While feeding a horse at the Dunstable Road huts on Monday evening, Trooper John Green, of the Northants Yeomanry, was kicked by the animal. The hoof caught his right leg and fractured the bone. His comrades took him to the Bute Hospital.

• Any gentleman having a disused dress suit can help to make life on board a ship. Able Seaman B. J. Waller, whose parents live at St Austell, 105 Tennyson Road, Luton, made the appeal for a suit "required for the more efficient carrying out of the performances arranged periodically on a certain ship in His Majesty's Fleet, now on active service".

• Failure to comply with the new regulation requiring all vehicles to exhibit a rear red light between half an hour after sunset and half an hour before sunrise was responsible for for further cases at the Luton Divisional Sessions on Monday. In one of the cases a cyclist whose rear red light would not burn wheeled his machine, but found that he was still committing an offence when a special constable stopped him. He was let off as it was the first case of the kind, but the magistrates desired specially to warn the public that cycles, even when being pushed, must have a rear red light. The only thing a man could now do under such circumstances would be to carry his cycle, suggested The Luton News.

• The possibility of successfully manufacturing aniline dyes in this country after the war was the subject of some resolutions at the meetings of the Associated Chambers of Commerce in London this week. Luton delegates were present, and at a special meeting of the Chamber at the Town Hall on Friday evening they were instructed to vote in support of the resolutions to be laid before the Associated Chambers. The main resolution urged the the desirability of subsidising or otherwise protecting industries started since the commencement of war.

• Four more lighting order cases before the Borough Police Court yesterday. The most important case involved the foundry at the Balmforth Boiler Works. The defence claimed that the nature of the work in which Balmforth were engaged and the conditions under which they were working made them exempt from the provisions of the Lighting Order. The claim was over-ruled and the firm fined £2.

• At the George Hotel on Monday evening, Messrs H. Holyoak & Son offered for public competition several properties in the borough. Bidding was fairly encouraging and it was evident that speculation is not altogether a lost virtue. Beechmont, 138 Old Bedford Road, sold for £685; three dwelling-houses at 61-65 Church Street for £595; Westbury House, 44 Rothesay Road, for £645; dwelling-house and shop at 25 Cheapside for £795; three three-storey warehouses with manufacturing premises at 7-9 John Street for £1,775; and a warehouse and premises at 13 John Street for £490.

• The urgently needed extension of the Luton Children's Sick and Convalescent Home would have been carried out "money no object" by now but for the intervention of the war, the committee of management reported at their annual meeting at the Town Hall on Monday evening. Dr Horace Sworder said he had secured a promise of the money necessary for the extension, but with the outbreak of war there might be difficulty in raising the ordinary maintenance funds for the institution and it was therefore inadvisable to proceed with the extension. Medical Superintendent Dr J. W. Bone said at present there were 30 children on the waiting list, chiefly for operations, who could not be admitted because there were no available beds.