Normally I would be happy to defer to the New York Times but there's some easily seen evidence that their date is wrong. Here's a British Government website lis

Normally I would be happy to defer to the New York Times but there's some easily seen evidence that their date is wrong. Here's a British Government website listing wills which includes a reference to Valentine Fleming and gives his date of death as 20 May 1917 - https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk/Calendar?surname=Fleming&yearOfDeath=1917&page=2#calendar https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk/Calendar?surname=Flemin... . And here's an obituary published on May 25 1917, of course it's possible the obituary was being published long after his death but unlikely I think https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/valentine-fleming-an-appreciation-z975zns3p https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/valentine-fleming-an-appr... . His being awarded his DSO immediately after his death, as recorded here https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/30111/supplement/5470 https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/30111/supplement/5..., is also much more likely than months afterwards. BTW in case there was confusion being "killed while fighting on the somme" is not the same as fighting in the Battle of the Somme. The battle was a distinct period of some months, while fighting on the Somme occupied a period of years for the greater part of WW 1. EDIT: In order to fix a typo I removed the text "to have occurred soon after his death" from the last sentence of the first paragraph