Engine Room Artificer 3rd Class Herbert Stanley Pestell, RN (M7142), was one of three Luton men lost when HMS Vanguard sank following an internal explosion while at anchor at Scapa Flow on July 9th, 1917. His body was never recovered for burial.
Boy 1st Class Arthur George Swain, J/48192, Royal Navy, was still just 16 when he went down in the Atlantic with HMS Genista, torpedoed by German submarine U-57, on October 23rd, 1916.
He was the second son of Arthur and Jane Swain, of 30 Arthur Street, Luton. He left his trade as a baker with Mr Shuter, of Tennyson Road, and joined the Navy about 12 months before his death. His body was not recovered.
Engineer-Lieut John McLennan Hine was died or was killed as a result on enemy action during the Battle of Jutland on May 31st, 1916, while serving on board the battlecruiser HMS Invincible, which was sunk.
Born in Maryport, Cumberland, in 1872, he and his family had lived in Rothesay Road, Luton, for two or three years prior to 1910. He had married Lydia Emma Booth in Suffolk on May 5th, 1901. They had four children - Alfred, Lydia Margaret, Joan McLennan and Nancy Mary McLennan. Nancy was born in Luton.
Writer Third Class Joseph Smith, M/8543, RN, was lost when the cruiser HMS Natal sank as the result of an internal explosion while in harbour in the Firth of Cromerty, on the north-eastern coast of Scotland, on December 30th, 1915. No enemy action was found to be involved, and Joseph Smith's body was not recovered for burial.
Artificer Engineer Arnold Wharton was one of three Royal Navy officers killed in action during the bombardment of the Dardanelles when HMS Irresistible hit a mine on March 18th, 1915, and eventually sank. He would have been aged 35 in April 1915.
A message later from Athens said the three had been buried at sea within sight of Tenedos, where women on the shore cast flowers and incense into the sea as a sign of mourning, flags flew at half-mast and bells tolled on land and at sea.
