100 years ago

Late the previous afternoon the Scarborough steam trawler Dalhousie had returned to port, and Skipper Marshall reported that five miles from Robin Hood’s Bay he had heard heavy gun firing.

There was a mist at the time, and he could not see any ships, but he took it for granted that there was some naval engagement in progress, and he returned to Scarborough. Several steam trawlers preparing to go to sea remained in port as the result of this statement. Nothing further had been heard regarding the report.

The Board of Trade at Grimsby, had just announced the official ratification by the East Anglian Steam Fishing Company that their trawler Mercia was presumed to have been lost in the North Sea, with her crew of nine hands. She had left Grimsby on March 20th, and had not been heard of since.

 

50 years ago

There were no mounted sentries today in Whitehall, London, because of the spread of the coughing epidemic among the Household Cavalry’s horses. Only six of the 200 horses were unaffected.

There would be a guard change, but the sentries would be on foot, and the ceremony would be “very short and formal,” said a Household Brigade spokesman. “Yesterday, we had just under 40 horses sick, but now it is a clean sweep. We expect the other six horses to develop the infection within the next 24 hours unless they have a resistance to it.”

The coughing was the same infection that had hit racehorses recently. It usually lasted from ten to 14 days. Normally, between 16 and 22 horses were on guard duty in Whitehall. This was the first time mounted sentries had been withdrawn since 1950. “Before that, it happened just after the outbreak of the war in 1939, when the horses were taken for war duties,” said a spokesman.

 

25 years ago

Freed American hostage Frank Reed, flashing the V-for-victory sign, arrived in West Germany after being freed from three-and-a-half years of captivity in Lebanon.

Reed, aged 57, was flown in a C 141 Starlifter military transport plane from the Syrian capital Damascus to the US airbase at Frankfurt. He told a news conference in Damascus shortly after his release he had spent his 43 months in captivity blindfolded. Reed was cheered by about 150 staff and patients when his helicopter arrived at the US Air Force Hospital in Wiesbaden.

“Welcome back to the free world,” said one sign hanging from a balcony. Reed, looking cheerful, gave a thumbs-up sign and waved to the crowd before entering the hospital.