Pilot Officer Walter Gordon Soares was born on 19 December 1918 in , Imperial County, California, USA, the eldest of the four children of Alberto Gualter Soares (1881-1956) and Irma E. Soares née Jenkins (b.1897).
In 1940 he was training as a service pilot at the , in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA, when he joined the , service number 100532. He was Pilot Officer attached to  and was based at .Ìý
He died, aged 22 years, on 27 September 1941, when flying a Hurricane MkIIb aeroplane, serial number Z3828, he was turning in to make a final approach to , when he collided with another Hurricane MKIIb, serial number Z3335, piloted by Pilot Officer Charles Sewell Barrell.ÌýBoth aeroplanes crashed near Anton Hill, Fowlmere, Royston, Cambridgeshire. Both pilots were killed and were buried in adjoining graves at , Dawney Hill, Pirbright, Surrey. His grave is , whilst that Pilot Officer Barrell is Plot 21, Row A, Grave 2.
He was posthumously awarded the  and is also commemorated on the .
Credit for this entry to: Andrew Behan.
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