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Bill Hoare was twenty-two years old when he was killed on 13 November 1916 at the Battle of the Somme. His war record was, like that of so many other British soldiers, lost in the Blitz of London in 1940, and his family, who seemed to have struggled to come to terms with their loss, never really discussed what had happened to Bill. In this article, I recreate Bill’s story from a combination of surviving official records and from memorabilia connected with his army service which remained hidden in an attaché case for decades.