Remembering the Fallen: on this day in 1917, Second Lieutenant Robert Henry Hose, 3rd/5th Battalion, The Bedfordshire Regiment, was killed in a booby trap bomb explosion during actions against the Hinderberg Line.
On leaving school he joined the firm of John Gibbs and Son and became a member of the Stock Exchange in 1910. Early in 1915 he joined the Royal Naval Aircraft Corps as a despatch rider. In October of that year he transferred to the 3rd/5th Bedfordshire Regiment in which he was given a commission. He was appointed adjutant the following March and remained with his battalion on East Coast Defence duty until January of 1917, when he volunteered for foreign service and joined the 2nd Battalion in France, arriving on the 15th of March. The Germans had vacated their former trenches and retreated to the Hindenburg Line. As the British advanced to take over the positions three days later, Second Lieutenant Hose and Private Thomas Pearson of Ilkeston were killed. They were buried in the Agny Military cemetery, five kilometres south-west of the Arras railway station.
Robert, from Bromley in Kent, was 29 years old and married with a young son.