Name: Rank: Service No: Service: Date of Birth: Place of Birth: Date of Enlistment: Place of Enlistment: Address at Enlistment: Age at Enlistment: Height: Complexion: Eye Colour: Hair Colour: Trade: Marital Status: Religion: Next of Kin: Date of Death: Age at Death: Cemetery: Reference:

Sources Veterans Affairs Canada findagrave.com

John Douglas Drake Corporal F/54656 West Nova Scotia Regiment, R.C.I.C. September 23, 1913 Barnsley, Yorkshire, England September 7, 1939 Sydney, NS Hunters Mountain, Victoria Co., NS 26 5 feet, 7½ inches Fair Blue Dark Brown Labourer Single Anglican Herbert Drake (Uncle) Barnsley, Yorkshire, England (at enlistment) Elizabeth Drake (Foster-Mother) Barnsley, Yorkshire, England (June 1943) March 28, 1944 30 Moro River Canadian War Cemetery I. D. 16 Commemorated on page 294 of the Second World War Book of Remembrance Displayed in the Memorial Chamber of the Peace Tower in Ottawa on June 23 John Douglas Drake was the Foster-son of Martha E. Drake, of Barnsley, Yorkshire, England. He left school at the age of fourteen having completed a Grade 8. In 1928, the Church of England arranged settlement for over one hundred English boys at the Brassey Hostel in Indian Head, Saskatchewan. It was home to a series of 15 to 18 year old boys until they found farm work. John Drake left Barnsley, Yorkshire at the age of sixteen and travelled with three other boys, one of whom was also from Barnsley and aged fifteen. They travelled as third class passengers on the SS Doric, departing Liverpool, England on April 25, 1930 and arriving at Quebec on May 4, 1930, in a group of nine Church of England Boys en-route to Saskatchewan. John’s occupation in England was listed as ‘Grocery Assistant’ and he carried $32.00 on leaving home. On this same crossing were eight boys between the ages of fourteen and seventeen, travelling to Falmouth, Nova Scotia as part of the National Association of Boys Clubs. At enlistment he indicated that in the previous ten years he had various employers and had worked in road construction. Corporal Drake completed training in Canada and embarked at Halifax on May 5, 1940, disembarking at Liverpool on May 12, 1940. He served in Canada between September 7, 1939 and May 12, 1940; in the United Kingdom between May 13, 1940 and June 27, 1943; and in Italy from June 28, 1943 until his death on March 28, 1944. Corporal Drake was killed in action on March 28, 1944.