Two Soldiers Reported Missing

St. Barnabas Church, Linslade c.1920 [Z1130/74/8]

Friday 8th June 1917: Acting-Sergeant Charles Harris, aged 42 and formerly of 8 Water Lane, Leighton Buzzard has been reported missing. Sergeant Harris is a Boer War veteran, who joined the Army at the age of 18. At the beginning of this war he was working at the Wire Works in Leighton Buzzard. Although he was no longer liable to be called up, he volunteered to rejoin the Army and was attached to the Berkshire Regiment. His wife and daughter are now living with her parents at 36, Bassett Road.

A Linslade mother is undergoing the same terrible anxiety. Mrs Janes of Soulbury Road is waiting for news of her youngest son, Private Claude Janes of the Oxford and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. He took part in an unsuccessful attack on 3rd May and was wounded while crawling from one shell hole to another. He has not been seen since and it is hoped that he may have been taken prisoner.[1] Private Janes is just 19 years old and a former choir boy at St. Barnabas Church in Linslade. He has two brothers also serving in the Army, one in France and the other in Salonica.

Source: Leighton Buzzard Observer, 12th June 1917

[1] Sadly both Sergeant Harris and Private Janes were killed in action on 3rd May 1917. Both are commemorated on the Arras Memorial.