Pilot Officer Walter Gordon Soares was born on 19 December 1918 in Brawley, 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 Spartan College of Aeronautics, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA, when he joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, service number 100532. He was Pilot Officer attached to No.133 Squadron and was based at RAF Biggin Hill.
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 RAF Duxford, when he collided with another Hurricane MKIIb, serial number Z3335, piloted by Pilot Officer Charles Sewell Barrell. Both aeroplanes crashed near Anton Hill, Fowlmere, Royston, Cambridgeshire. Both pilots were killed and were buried in adjoining graves at Brookwood Military Cemetery, Dawney Hill, Pirbright, Surrey. His grave is Plot 21, Row A, Grave 1, whilst that Pilot Officer Barrell is Plot 21, Row A, Grave 2.
He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and is also commemorated on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's website.
Credit for this entry to: Andrew Behan.
