Pte James Ernest Linger, 60826, 8th Battalion London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers), was reported missing at Cambrai in France on November 30th, 1917. In January 1919 his widow Elizabeth in Luton was still seeking information about him in the hope returning prisoners of war may have encountered him, but the War Office had by then presumed he had died in action at Cambrai.

Described in a report in The Luton News (January 23rd, 1919) and on the Luton Roll of Honour as a lance-corporal, James Linger had joined the Middlesex Regiment (5196) in April 1916, before being transferred to the Royal Fusiliers. He had fought at Arras and Cambrai.

Born in Luton in 1889, he had married Harpenden-born Elizabeth Sarah Deamer, then living in Dunstable, in the summer of 1913. They had a daughter, Eva Doris, born in October 1914, and lived at 20 Curzon Road, Luton.

In the 1911 Census, James was described as a straw hat packer and was living with parents Thomas and Emily Jane Linger and five siblings at 6 Lyndhurst Road, Luton. His brother, Percy Frank Linger, was killed in action near Givenchy on May 26th, 1915.

James is commemorated on the Cambrai Memorial at Louverval, on the Luton Roll of Honour/War Memorial and in the Book of Life compiled at Luton Parish Church.